The Project Gutenberg eBook of The International Magazine, Vol. III, No. II, MAY 1, 1851.

Transcriber's note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved to the end of the article. Table of Contents has been created for the HTML version.

GEORGE WILKINS KENDALL.

We have here a capital portrait of the editor in chief of the New Orleans Picayune, George W. Kendall, who, as an editor, author, traveller, or bon garçon, is world-famous, and every where entitled to be chairman in assemblies of these several necessary classes of people. Take him for all in all, he may be described as a new Chevalier Bayard, baptized in the spirit of fun, and with a steel pen in lieu of a blade of Damascus. He is a Vermonter—of the state which has sent out Orestes Brownson, Herman Hooker, the Coltons, Hiram Powers, Hannah Gould, and a crowd of other men and women with the sharpest intellects, and for the most part the genialist tempers too, that can be found in all the country. His boyhood was passed in the delightful village of Burlington, from which, when he was of age, he came to New-York, and here he lived until about the year 1835, when he went to New Orleans, where his subsequent career may be found traced in the most witty and brilliant and altogether successful journal ever published in the southern or western states.

Partly for the love of adventure and partly for advantage to his health, in the spring of 1841 Mr. Kendall determined to make an excursion into the great south-western prairies, and the contemplated trading expedition to Santa-Fe offering escort and agreeable companions, he procured passports from the Mexican vice-consul at New-Orleans, and joined it, at Austin. The history of this expedition has become an important portion of the history of the nation, and its details, embracing an account of his own captivity and sufferings in Mexico, were written by Mr. Kendall in one of the most spirited and graphic books of military and wilderness adventure, vicissitude, and endurance, that has been furnished in our times. The work was published in two volumes, by the Harpers, in 1844. It has since passed through many editions, and for the fidelity and felicity, the bravery and bon hommie, that mark all [Pg 146]its pages, it is likely to be one of the choicest chronicles that will be quoted from our own in the new centuries.

After the publication of his narrative of the Santa Fe Expedition, Mr. Kendall resumed his more immediate services in the Picayane—always, it may be said without injustice to his associates, most attractive under his personal supervision; and in the angry and war-tending controversies with Mexico which filled the public mind in the succeeding years, he was one of the calmest as well as wisest of our journalists. When at length the conflict came on, he attended the victorious Taylor as a member of his staff along the mountains and valleys which that great commander marked with the names of immortal victories, and had more than satisfaction for all griefs of his own in seeing the flag of his country planted in every scene in which his country had been insulted in his own person.

Upon the conclusion of the war, Mr. Kendall commenced the preparation of the magnificent work which has lately been published in this city by the Appletons, under the title of The War between the United States and Mexico, by George W. Kendall, illustrated by pictorial drawings by Carl Nebel. Mr. Nebel may be regarded as one of the best battle-painters living. He accompanied Mr. Kendall during the war, and made his sketches while on the several fields where he had witnessed the movements of the contending armies; and in all the accessories of scenery, costume, and general effect, he has unquestionably been as successful as the actors in the drama admit him to have been in giving a vivid and just impression of the distinguishing characteristics of each conflict. The subjects of the plates are the Bombardment of Vera Cruz, the Battle of Cerro Gordo, the Storming of Chepultepec, the Assault on Contreras, the Battle of Cherubusco, the Attack on Molino del Rey, General Scott's Entrance into Mexico, the Battle of Buena Vista, the Battle of Palo Alto, and the Capture of Monterey. In some cases, there are two representations of the same scene, taken from different points of view. These have all been reproduced in colored lithography by the best artists of Paris. The literary part of the work, comprising very careful and particular accounts of these events, is excellently written—so compactly and perspicuously, with so thorough a knowledge and so pure a taste, as to be deserving of applause among models in military history. Mr. Kendall passed about two years in Europe for the purpose of superintending its publication, and its success must have amply satisfied the most sanguine anticipations with which he entered upon its composition.

New England is largely represented among the leading editors of the South and West, and it is a little remarkable that the two papers most conspicuous as representatives of the idiosyncrasies which most obtain in their respective states—the Picayune and George D. Prentice's Louisville Journal—are conducted by men from sections most antagonistical in interest and feeling, men who have carried with them to their new homes and who still cherish there all the reciprocated affections by which they were connected with the North. When George W. Kendall leaves New Orleans for his summer wandering in our more comfortable and safe latitudes, an ovation of editors awaits him at every town along the Mississippi, and, crossing the mountains, he is the most popular member of the craft in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New-York, or Boston—an evidence that the strifes of party may exist without any personal ill-feeling, if the editor never forgets in his own person to sustain the character of a gentleman.

WASHINGTON.

It is a truth, illustrated in daily experience, and yet rarely noted or acted upon, that, in all that concerns the appreciation of personal character or ability, the instinctive impressions of a community are quicker in their action, more profoundly appreciant, and more reliable, than the intellectual perceptions of the ablest men in the community. Upon all those subjects that are of moral apprehension, society seems to possess an intelligence of its own, infinitely sensitive in its delicacy, and almost conclusive in the certainty of its determinations; indirect, and unconscious in its operation, yet unshunnable in sagacity, and as strong and confident as nature itself. The highest and finest qualities of human judgment seem to be in commission among the nation, or the race. It is by such a process, that whenever a true hero appears among mankind, the recognition of his character, by the general sense of humanity, is instant and certain: the belief of the chief priests and rulers of mind follows later, or comes not at all. The perceptions of a public are as subtly-sighted as its passions are blind. It sees, and feels, and knows the excellence, which it can neither understand, nor explain, nor vindicate. These involuntary opinions of people at large explain themselves, and are vindicated by events, and form at last the constants of human understanding. A character of the first order of greatness, such as seems to pass out of the limits and courses of ordinary life, often lies above the ken of intellectual judgment; but its merits and its infirmities never escape the sleepless perspicacity of the common sentiment, which no novelty of form can surprise, and no mixture of qualities can perplex. The mind—the logical faculty—comprehends a subject, when it can trace in it the same elements, or relations, which it is familiar with elsewhere; if it finds but a faint analogy of form or substance, its decision is embarrassed. But this other instinct seems to become subtler, and more rapid, and more absolute in conviction, at the line where reason begins to falter.

Take the case of Shakspeare. His surpassing greatness was never acknowledged by the learned, until the nation had ascertained and settled it as a foregone and questionless conclusion. Even now, to the most sagacious mind of this time, the real ground and evidence of its own assurance of Shakspeare's supremacy, is the universal, deep, immovable conviction of it in the public feeling. There have been many acute essays upon his minor characteristics; but intellectual criticism has never grappled with Shaksperian ART in its entireness and grandeur, and probably it never will. We know not now wherein his greatness consists. We cannot demonstrate it. There is less indistinctness in the merit of less eminent authors. Those things which are not doubts to our consciousness, are yet mysteries to our mind. And if this is true of literary art, which is so much within the sphere of reflection, it may be expected to find more striking illustration in great practical and public moral characters.[Pg 147]

These considerations occur naturally to the mind in contemplating the fame of Washington. An attentive examination of the whole subject, and of all that can contribute to the formation of a sound opinion, results in the belief that General Washington's mental abilities illustrate the very highest type of greatness. His mind, probably, was one of the very greatest that was ever given to mortality. Yet it is impossible to establish that position by a direct analysis of his character, or conduct, or productions. When we look at the incidents or the results of that great career—when we contemplate the qualities by which it is marked, from its beginning to its end—the foresight which never was surprised, the judgment which nothing could deceive, the wisdom whose resources were incapable of exhaustion—combined with a spirit as resolute in its official duties as it was moderate in its private pretensions, as indomitable in its public temper as it was gentle in its personal tone—we are left in wonder and reverence. But when we would enter into the recesses of that mind—when we would discriminate upon its construction, and reason upon its operations—when we would tell how it was composed, and why it excelled—we are entirely at fault. The processes of Washington's understanding are entirely hidden from us. What came from it, in counsel or in action, was the life and glory of his country; what went on within it, is shrouded in impenetrable concealment. Such elevation in degree of wisdom, amounts almost to a change of kind, in nature, and detaches his intelligence from the sympathy of ours. We cannot see him as he was, because we are not like him. The tones of the mighty bell were heard with the certainty of Time itself, and with a force that vibrates still upon the air of life, and will vibrate for ever. But the clock-work, by which they were regulated and given forth, we can neither see nor understand. In fact, his intellectual abilities did not exist in an analytical and separated form; but in a combined and concrete state. They "moved altogether when they moved at all." They were in no degree speculative, but only practical. They could not act at all in the region of imagination, but only upon the field of reality. The sympathies of his intelligence dwelt exclusively in the national being and action. Its interests and energies were absorbed in them. He was nothing out of that sphere, because he was every thing there. The extent to which he was identified with the country is unexampled in the relations of individual men to the community. During the whole period of[Pg 148] his life he was the thinking part of the nation. He was its mind; it was his image and illustration. If we would classify and measure him, it must be with nations and not with individuals.

This extraordinary nature of Washington's capacities—this impossibility of analyzing and understanding the elements and methods of his wisdom—have led some persons to doubt whether, intellectually, he was of great superiority; but the public—the community—never doubted of the transcendent eminence of Washington's abilities. From the first moment of his appearance as the chief, the recognition of him, from one end of the country to the other, as the man—the leader, the counsellor, the infallible in suggestion and in conduct—was immediate and universal. From that moment to the close of the scene, the national confidence in his capacity was as spontaneous, as enthusiastic, as immovable, as it was in his integrity. Particular persons, affected by the untoward course of events, sometimes questioned his sufficiency; but the nation never questioned it, nor would allow it to be questioned. Neither misfortune, nor disappointment, nor accidents, nor delay, nor the protracted gloom of years, could avail to disturb the public trust in him. It was apart from circumstances; it was beside the action of caprice; it was beyond all visionary, and above all changeable feelings. It was founded on nothing extraneous; not upon what he had said or done, but upon what he was. They saw something in the man, which gave them assurance of a nature and destiny of the highest elevation—something inexplicable, but which inspired a complete satisfaction. We feel that this reliance was wise and right; but why it was felt, or why it was right, we are as much to seek as those who came under the direct impression of his personal presence. It is not surprising, that the world, recognizing in this man a nature and a greatness which philosophy cannot explain, should revere him almost to religion.

The distance and magnitude of those objects which are too far above us to be estimated directly—such as stars—are determined by their parallax. By some process of that kind we may form an approximate notion of Washington's greatness. We may measure him against the great events in which he moved; and against the great men, among whom, and above whom, his figure stood like a tower. It is agreed that the war of American Independence is one of the most exalted, and honorable, and difficult achievements related in history. Its force was contributed by many; but its grandeur was derived from Washington. His character and wisdom gave unity, and dignity, and effect to the irregular, and often divergent enthusiasm of others. His energy combined the parts; his intelligence guided the whole: his perseverance, and fortitude, and resolution, were the inspiration and support of all. In looking back over that period, his presence seems to fill the whole scene; his influence predominates throughout; his character is reflected from every thing. Perhaps nothing less than his immense weight of mind could have kept the national system, at home, in that position which it held, immovably, for seven years; perhaps nothing but the august respectability which his demeanor threw around the American cause abroad, would have induced a foreign nation to enter into an equal alliance with us, upon terms that contributed in a most important degree to our final success, or would have caused Great Britain to feel that no great indignity was suffered in admitting the claim to national existence of a people who had such a representative as Washington. What but the most eminent qualities of mind and feeling—discretion superhuman—readiness of invention, and dexterity of means, equal to the most desperate affairs—endurance, self-control, regulated ardor, restrained passion, caution mingled with boldness, and all the contrarieties of moral excellence—could have expanded the life of an individual into a career such as this?

If we compare him with the great men who were his contemporaries throughout the nation; in an age of extraordinary personages, Washington was unquestionably the first man of the time in ability. Review the correspondence of General Washington—that sublime monument of intelligence and integrity—scrutinize the public history and the public men of that era, and you will find that in all the wisdom that was accomplished was attempted, Washington was before every man in his suggestions of the plan, and beyond every one in the extent to which he contributed to its adoption. In the field, all the able generals acknowledged his superiority, and looked up to him with loyalty, reliance, and reverence; the others, who doubted his ability, or conspired against his sovereignty, illustrated, in their own conduct, their incapacity to be either his judges or his rivals. In the state, Adams, Jay, Rutledge, Pinckney, Morris—these are great names; but there is not one whose wisdom does not vail to his. His superiority was felt by all these persons, and was felt by Washington himself, as a simple matter of fact, as little a subject of question, or a cause of vanity, as the eminence of his personal stature. His appointment as commander-in-chief, was the result of no design on his part, and of no efforts on the part of his friends; it seemed to take place spontaneously. He moved into the position, because there was a vacuum which no other could supply: in it, he was not sustained by government, by a party, nor by connections; he sustained himself, and then he sustained every thing else. He sustained Congress against the army, and the army against the injustice of Congress. The brightest mind among his contemporaries was Hamilton's; a character which cannot be contemplated without frequent admiration, and constant affection. His talents took the form of genius, which Washington's did not. But active, various, and brilliant, as the faculties of Hamilton were, whether viewed in the precocity of youth, or in the all-accomplished elegance of maturer life—lightning quick as his intelligence was to see through every subject that came before it, and vigorous as it was in constructing the argumentation by which other minds were to be led, as upon a shapely bridge, over the obscure depths across which his had flashed in a moment—fertile and sound in schemes, ready in action, splendid in display, as he was—nothing is more obvious and certain than that when Mr. Hamilton approached Washington, he came into the presence of one who surpassed him in the extent, in the comprehension, the elevation, the sagacity, the force, and the ponderousness of his mind, as much as he did in the majesty of his aspect, and the grandeur of his step. The genius of Hamilton was a flower, which gratifies, surprises, and enchants; the intelligence of Washington was a stately tree,[Pg 149] which in the rarity and true dignity of its beauty is as superior, as it is in its dimensions.

WILLIAM HOGARTH.

The great comedian in pictorial art forms one of the subjects of Mrs. Hall's sketches, in the Pilgrimages to English Shrines, and we think her article upon visiting his tomb as interesting as any in this popular series:

Hogarth, the great painter-teacher of his age and country, was born in the parish of St. Bartholomew the Great, in London, on the 10th of November, 1697, and his trusty and sympathizing biographer, Allan Cunningham, says, "we have the authority of his own manuscripts for believing he was baptized on the 28th of the same month;" but the parish registers have been examined for confirmation with "fruitless solicitude." Cunningham gives December as the month of his birth; this is a mistake; so also is his notice of the painter's introduction of the Virago into his picture of the "Modern Midnight Conversation." No female figure appears in this subject. It is in the third plate of the "Rake's Progress" the woman alluded to is introduced. A small critic might here find a fit subject for vituperation, and loudly condemn Cunningham as a writer who was too idle to examine the works he was describing; pouncing on his minute errors, and forgetting the totality of his generous labors. Much of this spirit infests literature; and merges the kindly exposition of error into the bitterness of personal attack. The fallibility of human nature should teach us charity, and our own faults lead us to "more gently scan our brother man,"—a thing too often unthought of by those who are nothing if not critical, and as frequently nothing when they are. The painter was descended from a Westmoreland family. Sprung from an industrious race of self-helping yeomen, whose hardy toil brought them health and contentment, Hogarth had an early advantage, derived from his father's love of letters, which eventually drew him away from field and wood to the great London mart. Like thousands of others, he was unsuccessful. Fortunately, in this instance, his want of success in literature stimulated the strong mind of his son to seek occupation of more certain profit; and those who feel interest in the whereabouts of celebrated men, may think upon the days when William Hogarth wrought in silver, as the apprentice of Ellis Gamble, in Cranbourne Street, and speculate upon the change of circumstances, wrought by his own exertions, when, as a great painter, in after time, he occupied the house, now known as the Sabloniere Hotel, in Leicester Square.

Hogarth's character of mind, evidenced in his works and proved by his biography, is so perfectly honest, open, home-bred English, that we claim him with pride—as belonging exclusively to England. His originality is of English growth; his satire broad, bold, fair-play English. He was no screened assassin of character, either with pen or pencil; no journalist's hack to stab in secret—concealing his name, or assuming a forged one; no masked caricaturist, responsible to none. His philosophy was of the straightforward, clear-sighted English school; his theories—stern, simple, and unadorned—thoroughly English; his determination—proved in his love as well as in his hate—quite English; there is a firmness of purpose, a rough dignity, a John-Bull look in his broad intelligent face; the very fur round his cap must have been plain English rabbit-skin! No matter what "schools" were in fashion, Hogarth created and followed his own; no matter what was done, or said, or written, Hogarth maintained his opinion unflinchingly; he was not to be moved or removed from his resolve. His mind was vigorous and inflexible, and withal, keen and acute; and though the delicacy of his taste in this more refined age may be matter of question, there can be no doubt as to his integrity and uprightness of purpose—in his determination to denounce vice, and by that means cherish virtue.

Professor Leslie, in his eloquent and valuable Lectures on Painting, delivered in the spring of the present year to the students of the Royal Academy, has nobly vindicated Hogarth as an artist and a man, in words that all who heard will long remember. "Hogarth," he said, "it is true, is often gross; but it must be remembered that he painted in a less fastidious age than ours, and that his great object was to expose vice. Debauchery is always made by him detestable, never attractive." Charles Lamb, one of the best of his commentators, who has viewed his labors in a kindred spirit, speaking of one of his most elaborate and varied works, the "Election Entertainment," asks, "What is the result left on the mind? Is it an impression of the vileness and worthlessness of our species? Or is not the general feeling which remains after the individual faces have ceased to act sensibly on the mind, a kindly one in favor of the species?" Leslie speaks of his "high species of humor, pregnant with moral meanings," and no happier choice of phrase could characterize his many works. Lamb, with true discrimination, says: "All laughter is not of a dangerous or soul-hardening tendency. There is the petrifying sneer of a demon, which excludes and kills love, and there is the cordial laughter of a man, which implies and cherishes it."

Hogarth's works are before us all; and are lessons as much for to-day as they were for yesterday. We have no intention of scrutinizing their merits or defects; we write only of the influence of a class of art such as he brought courageously before the English public. Every one is acquainted with the "Rake's Progress," and can recall subject after subject, story after story, which he[Pg 150] illustrated. Comparatively few can judge of him as a painter, but all can comprehend his moral essays—brave as true!

His fearlessness and earnestness are above all price; independent, in their high estate, of all praise. We would send "Marriage à la Mode" into general circulation during the London season, where the market for wives and husbands is presided over by interest rather than affection. The matrimonial mart was as bravely exposed by the great satirist, as the brutal and unmanly cock-fight, which at that period was permitted to take place at the Cock-pit Royal, on the south side of St. James's Park.

Society always needs such men as William Hogarth—true, stern men—to grapple with and overthrow the vices which spring up—the very weeds both of poverty and luxury,—the latter filled with the more bitter and subtle poison. Calling to mind the period, we the more honor the great artist's resolution; if the delicacy of our improved times is offended by what may seem deformity upon his canvas, we must remember that we do not shrink from Hogarth's coarseness, but from the coarseness he labored, by exposing, to expel. He painted what Smollett, and Fielding, and Richardson wrote far more offensively; but he surpassed the novelists both in truth and in intention. He painted without sympathizing with his subjects, whom he lashed with unsparing bitterness or humor. He never idealized a vice into a virtue—he never compromised a fact, much less a principle.

He has, indeed, written fearful sermons on his canvas; sermons which, however exaggerated they may seem to us in some of their painful details of human sin and human misery, are yet so real, that we never doubt that such things were, and are. No one can suspect Hogarth to have been tainted by the vices he exposed. In this he has the advantage of the novelists of his period: he gives vice no loophole of escape: it is there in its hideous aspect, each step distinctly marked, each character telling its own tale of warning, so that "he who runs may read."

Whoever desires to trace the life of this English artist—to note him in his apprenticeship—when he tamed as well as his rough nature would permit, his hand to the delicate graving so cherished by his master, Ellis Gamble; and when freed from his apprenticeship, he sought art through the stirring scenes of life, saying quaintly enough, that "copying other men's works resembled pouring wine out of one vessel into another; there was no increase of quantity, and the flavor of the vintage was liable to evaporate;"—whoever would study the great, as well as the small, peculiarities of the painter who converted his thumb-nail into a palette, and while transcribing characters and events both rapidly and faithfully, complained of his "constitutional idleness:"—whenever, we say, our readers feel desirous of revelling in the biography of so diligent, so observing, so faithful, so brave a spirit, we should send them to our old friend Allan Cunningham's most interesting history of the man. Honest Allan had much in common with our great national artist: though of different countries, they sprung from the same race—sturdy yeomen; they were alike lovers of independence, fighting for the best part of life manfully and faithfully enjoying the noble scorn of wrong, and battling for the right from the cradle to the grave. Self-educated—that is to say, educated by Nature, which gave and nourished his high intellect and independent soul—Allan could comprehend and appreciate the manly bearing and stern self-reliance of the painter, whose best resources were in himself; thus the biography of Hogarth is among the finest examples of its class which our language supplies. Allan's sympathies were with his subject; and his knowledge also came to his aid: for the poet was thoroughly imbued with a love of art.

Allan Cunningham was a better disciplinarian, and less prone to look for or care for enjoyment, than Hogarth; though we have many pleasant memories how he truly relished both music and conversation. But there was more sentiment in the Scottish poet than in the English painter; and the deep dark eyes of the Scot had more of fervor and less of sarcasm in their brightness. We repeat, Allan, of all writers, could thoroughly appreciate Hogarth; and his biography is written con amore. He says that "all who love the dramatic representations of actual life,—all who have hearts to be gladdened by humor,—all who are pleased with judicious and well-directed satire,—all who are charmed with the ludicrous looks of popular folly, and all who can be moved with the pathos of human suffering, are admirers of Hogarth." But to our thinking; Hogarth had a calling even more elevated than the Scottish poet has given him in this eloquent summing-up of his attributes; "he is one of our greatest teachers—a teacher to whom is due the highest possible honor; and the more we feel the importance of the teacher, the more we value those who teach well. In grappling with folly and in combating with crimes, he was compelled to reveal the nature of that he proposed to satirize; he was obliged to set up sin in its high place before he could crown it with infamy." The times were full of internal as well as foreign disturbance, and Hogarth's studio was no hermitage to exclude passing events or their promoters. He lived with the living, moving present,—his engravings being his pleasures; portraits, as they are now to many a high-hearted man of talent, his means of subsistence; heavy weights of mortality that fetter and clog the ascending spirit.

His controversies and encounters with the worthless Wilkes,—his defence of his own theories,—his determined dislike to the establishment of a Royal Academy—his various other controversies—rendered his exciting course very different from that of the lonely artists of the present day, who are but too fond of living in closed studios, "pouring," as Hogarth would have said,—"pouring wine from one vessel into another,"—pondering over tales and poems for inspiration, and transcribing the worn-out models of many seasons into attitudes of bounding and varied life! Is it not wonderful, as sad, that the artist will not feel his power, will not take his own place, assume his high standing as of old, and demand the duty of respect from the world by the just exercise of his glorious privilege! "Entertainment and information are not all the mind requires at the hand of an artist; we wish to be elevated by contemplating what is noble,—to be warmed, by the presence of the heroic,—and charmed and made happy by the light of purity and loveliness. We desire to share in the lofty movements of fine minds—to have communion with their image of[Pg 151] what is godlike, and to take a part in the rapture of their love, and in the ecstasies of all their musings. This is the chief end of high poetry, of high painting, and high sculpture; and the man misunderstands the true spirit of those arts who seeks to deprive them of a portion of their divinity, and argues that entertainment and information constitute their highest aim." We have quoted this passage because it expresses our notions of the power of art more happily than we are able to express it; but we must add that the teaching as well as the poetic painter has much to complain of from society; it is impossible to mingle among the "higher classes" without being struck by their indifference to every phase of British art,—except portraiture. "Have you been to the Exhibition? Are there many nice miniatures? are the portraits good? Lady D.'s lace is perfect; Mrs. A.'s velvet is inimitable." Such observations strike the ear with painful discord, when the mind is filled with memories of those who are brave or independent enough to "look forward" with creative genius. There are many noble exceptions among our aristocracy; but with far too great a number art is a mere fashion.

As a people, neither our eyes nor our ears are yet opened to its instructive and elevating faculty. We mistake the outlay of money for an expenditure of sympathy.

Hogarth's portraits were almost too faithful to please his sitters: he was too truthful to flatter, even on canvas; and the wonder is that he achieved any popularity in this fantastic branch of his art. Allan Cunningham has said of him, that he regarded neither the historian's page, nor the poet's song. He was contented with the occurrences of the passing day, with the folly or the sin of the hour; yet to the garb and fashion of the moment, he adds story and sentiment for all time. It is quite delicious to read the excuses Allan makes for the foibles of the man whose virtues had touched his own generous heart; he confesses with great naiveté that he looked coldly—"too coldly, perhaps"—on foreign art, and perhaps too fondly on his own productions; and then adds that, "where vanity soonest misleads the judgment he thought wisely; he contemplated his own works, not as things excellent in themselves, but as the rudiments of future excellence, and looked forward with the hope that some happier Hogarth would raise, on the foundation he had laid, a perfect and lasting superstructure."

We must humbly differ from the poet in this matter; we believe, if the characteristic cap were removed from that sturdy brow, we should find an admirable development of the organ of self-esteem. He thought as little of a future and "happier Hogarth," as he did of the old masters. He was Monarch of the Present—and he knew it!

The age we live in talks much about renovation, but it is not a conservative age; on the contrary, it would pull down Temple Bar, if it dared, to widen the passage from the Strand into Fleet Street; and it demolishes houses, shrines of noble memories, with a total absence of respect for what it ought to honor. We never hear of an old house without a feeling that it is either going to be destroyed or modernized; and this inevitably leads to a desire to visit it immediately. Having determined on a drive to Chiswick to make acquaintance with the dwelling of Hogarth, and look upon his tomb—we became restless until it was accomplished.

We had seen, by the courtesy of Mr. Allison, the piano-forte manufacturer in Dean Street, the residence of Sir James Thornhill, whose daughter Hogarth married: the proprietor bestows most praiseworthy care on the house, which was formerly one of considerable extent and importance. Mr. Allison says there can be little doubt that the grounds extended into Wardour Street. Once, while removing a chimney-piece in the drawing-room,[Pg 152] a number of cards tumbled out—slips of playing-cards, with the names of some of the most distinguished persons of Hogarth's time written on the backs; the residences were also given, proving that the "gentry" then dwelt where now the poorer classes congregate. But the most interesting part of the house is the staircase, with its painted ceiling; the wall of the former is divided into three compartments, each representing a sort of ball-room back-ground, with groups of figures life-size, looking down from a balcony; they are well preserved, and one of the ladies is thought to be a very faithful portrait of Mrs. Hogarth. Hogarth must have spent some time in that house:—but we were resolved, despite the repute of its being old and ugly, to visit his dwelling-place at Chiswick; and though we made the pilgrimage by a longer route than was necessary, we did not regret skirting the beautiful plantations of the Duke of Devonshire, nor enjoying the fragrance of the green meadows, which never seem so green to us, as in the vale of the Thames. The house is a tall, narrow, abrupt-looking place, close to the roadside wall of its inclosed garden; numbers of cottage dwellings for the poor have sprung up around it, but in Hogarth's day it must have been very isolated: not leading to the water, as we had imagined, but having a dull and prison-like aspect; if, indeed, any place can have that aspect where trees grow, and grass is checkered by their ever-varying shadows. The house was occupied from 1814 to 1832 by Cary, the translator of Dante; and it would be worth a pilgrimage if considered only as the residence of this truly-excellent and highly-gifted clergyman.

We have received from his son an interesting note relative to its features at the period when it came into his father's possession. "The house," he says, "stands in one corner of a high-walled garden of about three quarters of an acre, that part of the garden which faced the house was divided into long, narrow, formal flower-beds. Five large trees, whose ages bespoke their acquaintance with Hogarth, showed his love of the beautiful as well as the useful, a mulberry, walnut, apricot, double-blossomed cherry, and a hawthorn: the last of these was a great favorite with my father, from its beauty, and the attraction it was to the nightingale, which never failed to visit it in the spring: the gardeners were their mortal enemies, and alas, have at length prevailed. A few years ago, when I went to visit the old place, only one of the trees remained, (the mulberry seen in our sketch); in a nook at one side of the garden was a nut-walk, with a high wall and a row of filbert-trees that arched triumphantly over it; at one end of this walk was a stone slab, on which Hogarth used to play at nine-pins; at the other end were the two little tombstones to the memory of a bird and a dog." The house is as you see it here, the rooms with low ceilings and all sorts of odd shapes,—up and down, in and out,—yet withal pleasant and comfortable, and rendered more so by the gentle courtesy of their mistress and her kindly servant; the very dogs seemed to partake of the human nature of their protector, and attended us wherever we went, with more than ordinary civility. Hogarth might have been tempted to immortalize one of them for its extreme ugliness, and the waggish spirit with which it pulled at its companion's ears, who in vain attempted to tug at the bits of stumps that stuck out at either side of its tormentor's head. Mr. Fairholt was permitted to sketch the drawing room; the open door leads to the chamber from whence, it is said, Miss Thornhill eloped with Hogarth.

Mr. Cary, in the note to which we have already alluded, says, "there can hardly be a doubt that the house belonged to Sir James Thornhill, and that Hogarth inherited it from him. Mrs. Hogarth lived there after her husband's death, and left it by will to a lady from whose executor my father bought it in the year 1814. The room from which Miss Thornhill is said to have eloped is the inner room, on the first floor; this room was used[Pg 153] by my father as his study. Over the dining-room fireplace was a spirited pencil sketch of five heads, and under them written 'five jolly fellows,' by Hogarth—during an absence the servants of a tenant carefully washed all out."

We can easily imagine how the union between Hogarth and his daughter, commenced after such a fashion, outraged not only the courtliness, but the higher and better feelings of Sir James Thornhill. Hogarth's innate consciousness of power may at that time have appeared to him vulgar effrontery; and it is not to be wondered at, that, until convinced of his talent, he refused him all assistance. There is something so false and wrong in the concealment that precedes an elopement, and the elopement of an only child from an aged father, that we marvel how any one can treat lightly the outraged feelings of a confiding parent. Earnest tender love so deeply rooted in a father's heart may pardon, but cannot reach forgetfulness as quickly as it is the custom of play-writers and novelists to tell us it may do.

Sir James Thornhill was greatly the fashion; he was the successor of Verrio, and the rival of La Guerre, in the decorations of our palaces and public buildings. His demands for the painting of Greenwich Hall were contested; and though La Fosse received two thousand pounds for his works at Montague House, besides other allowances, Sir James, despite his dignity as Member of Parliament for his native town of Weymouth, could obtain but forty shillings a square yard for painting the cupola of St. Paul's! Thus the patronage afforded "native talent" kept him poor; and though it must have been necessary (one of the cruel necessities induced by love of display in England), to have an establishment suited to his public position in London, nothing could be more unpretending than his ménage at Chiswick. Mrs. Hogarth, advised by her mother, skilfully managed to let her father see one of her husband's best productions under advantageous circumstances. Sir James acknowledged its merit at once, exclaiming, "Very well! very well! The man who can make works like this can maintain a wife without a portion;" and soon after became not only reconciled, but generous to the young people. Hogarth had tasted the bitterness of labor; he had even worked for booksellers, and painted portraits!—so that this summer brightness must have been full of enjoyment. He appreciated it thoroughly, and was ever the earnest admirer and the ready defender of Sir James Thornhill; thus the old knight secured a friend in his son; and it was pleasanter to think of the hours of reconciliation and happiness they might have passed within the walls of that inclosed garden, beneath the crumbling trellice, or the shadow of the old mulberry tree, than of the fortuneless artist wooing the confiding daughter from her home and her filial duties.

We were invited to inspect Hogarth's painting-room—a mere loft, of most limited dimensions, over the stable, which the imagination could easily furnish with the necessary easel, or still less cumbrous graver's implements. It is situated at the furthest part of the garden from the house; a small door in the garden-wall leads into a little inclosure, one side of which is occupied by the stable. The painting-room is over the stable, and is reached by a stair; it has but one window which looks towards the road. It must have been sufficiently commodious for Hogarth's purposes; but possesses not the conveniences of modern painting-rooms. The house at Chiswick could only have been a place for recreation and repose, where relaxation was cared for, and where sketches were prepared to ripen into publication.

There are traditions about Chiswick of Hogarth having, while studying and taking notes, frequented a little inn by the roadside, and almost within sight of his dwelling. It has been modernized throughout—and supplies no subject for the pencil—yet it retains some indications, not without interest, of a remote date. The Painter must have been familiar with every class of character; and Chiswick was then enough of a country village to supply him amply with material. But, although a keen satirist, it is certain that he had as much tenderness for the lower orders of creation, as a young loving girl. In a corner of this quaint old garden, two tiny monuments are affixed to the wall, one chiselled perhaps by Hogarth's own hand, to the memory of his canary bird! The[Pg 154] thinking character of the painter's mind is evidenced in this as in every thing he did—the engraving on the tomb suggesting reflection. Charles Lamb said of him truly, that the quantity of thought which he crowded into every picture, would alone "unvulgarize" every subject he might choose; and the refined Coleridge exclaims, "Hogarth! in whom the satirist never extinguished that love of beauty which belonged to him as a poet." There is something inexpressibly tender and touching in this memento of his affection for a little singing bird: the feeling must have been entirely his own, for he had no child to suggest the tribute to a feathered favorite. The tomb was afterwards accompanied with one to Mrs. Hogarth's dog. They are narrow, upright pieces of white stone laid against the brick-wall, but they are records of gentle and generous sympathies not to be overlooked. That Hogarth was more than on friendly terms with the canine race, the introduction of his own dog into his portrait clearly tells, and doubtless his bird often brought with its music visions of the country into the heat and dust of Leicester Square—soothing away much of his impatience. Men who have to fight the up-hill battle of life, must have energy and determination; and Hogarth was too out-spoken and self-confident not to have made many enemies. In after years his success (limited though it was, in a pecuniary point of view, for he died without leaving enough to support his widow respectably), produced its ordinary results—envy and enmity: and insults were heaped upon him. He was not tardy of reply, but Wilkes and Churchill were in strong health when nature was giving way with the great painter; an advantage they did not fail to use with their accustomed malignity. The profligate Churchill, turning the poet's nature into gall, infested the death-bed of Hogarth with unfeeling sarcasm, anticipating the grave, and exulting over a dying man.

Hogarth, warned by the autumn winds, and suffering from the restlessness of approaching dissolution, left Chiswick on the 25th of October, 1764, and returned to his residence in Leicester Square. He was cheerful—in full possession of his mental faculties, but lacked the vigor to exert them. The very next day, having received an agreeable letter from Doctor Franklin, he wrote a rough copy of his answer, but exhausted with the effort, retired to bed. Seized by a sudden sickness, he arose—rung the bell with alarming violence—and within two hours expired!

Of all the villages in the neighborhood of London, rising from the banks of the Thames, (and how numerous and beautiful they are!) few are so well known as that of Chiswick. The horticultural fêtes are anticipated with anxiety similar to that our grandmothers felt for the fêtes of Ranelagh; the toilettes of the ladies rival the flowers, and the only foe to the fascinating fair ones is the weather; but all which the crowd care about in Chiswick is confined to the "Duke's grounds" and the Society's Gardens. The Duke's beautiful little villa, erected by the last Earl of Burlington, is indeed a shrine worthy of deep homage; within its walls both Charles James Fox and George Canning breathed their last; and if, for a moment, we recall the times of Civil War, when each honest English heart fought bravely and openly for what was believed "the right," we may picture the struggle between Prince Rupert and the Earl of Essex, terminating with doubtful success, for eight hundred high born cavaliers were left dead on the plain that lies within sight of the gardens so richly perfumed by flowers, and echoing not to the searching trumpet or rolling drum, but to the gossamer music of Strauss and Jullien.

The Duke of Devonshire's grounds, containing about ninety acres, are filled with mementos, pleasant to the eye and suggestive to the imagination; but we must seek and find a more solemn scene, where the churchyard of Chiswick incloses the ashes of some whose names are written upon[Pg 155] the pages of History. Though the church is, in a degree, surrounded by houses, there is much of the repose of "a country churchyard" about it; the Thames belts it with its silver girdle, and when we visited its sanctuary, the setting sun cast a mellow light upon the windows of the church, touching a headstone or an urn, while the shadows trembled on the undulating graves. Like all church-yards it is crowded, and however reverently we bent our footsteps, it was impossible to avoid treading on the soft grass of the humble grave, or the gray stone that marks the resting-place of one of "the better order."

How like the world was that silent churchyard! High and low, rich and poor, mingled together, and yet avoiding to mingle. The dust of the imperious Duchess of Cleveland found here a grave; while here too, as if to contrast the pure with the impure, repose the ashes of Mary, daughter of Oliver Cromwell; Holland the actor, the friend of David Garrick, here cast aside his "motley." Can we wonder at the actor's love of applause?—posterity knows him not; present fame alone is his—the lark's song leaves no record in the air!—Lord Macartney, the famous ambassador to China, a country of which our knowledge was then almost as dim as that we have of the moon—the ambassador rests here, while a Chinese junk is absolutely moored in the very river that murmurs beside his grave! Surely the old place is worthy of a pilgrimage. Loutherbourg, the painter, found a resting-place in its churchyard. Ralph, the historian and political writer, whose histories and politics are now as little read as the Dunciad which held them up to ridicule, is buried here; and confined as is the space, it is rich in epitaphs,—three are from the pen of David Garrick, two from that of Arthur Murphy.

It is remarkable among the many plainer "stones" with which the churchyard is crowded, but is by no means distinguished for that artistic character—which it might have received as covering the remains of so great an artist. A small slab, in relief, takes from it, however, the charge of insipidity; it contains a comic mask, an oak branch, pencils and mahl-stick, a book and a scroll, and the palette, marked with the "line of beauty."

It has been remarked, that "while he faithfully followed nature through all her varieties, and exposed, with inimitable skill, the infinite follies and vices of the world, he was in himself an example of many virtues." And the following poetical tribute by David Garrick is inscribed on the tomb:

Dr. Johnson also composed an epitaph, which Cunningham considers "more to the purpose, but still unworthy:"

The tributes—in poetry and prose—are just, examine the works of this great painter-teacher as closely and suspiciously as we may, we can discover nothing that will induce a momentary doubt of his integrity of purpose in all he did; his shafts were aimed at Vice,—in no solitary instance was he ever guilty of arraigning or assailing Virtue. Compare him with the most famous of the Dutch masters, and he rises into glory; coarseness and vulgarity in them had no point out of which could come instruction. If they picture the issues of their own minds, they must have been gross and sensual; they ransacked the muck of life, and the grovelling in character, for themes that one should see only by compulsion. But Hogarth's subjects were never without a lesson, and, inasmuch as he resorted for them to the open volume of humanity, like those of the most immortal of our writers, his works are "not for an age but for all time."

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

The author of The House of Seven Gables is now about forty-five years of age. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and is of a family which for several generations has "followed the sea." Among his ancestors, I believe, was the "bold Hawthorne," who is celebrated in a revolutionary ballad as commander of the "Fair American." He was educated at Bowdoin College in Maine, where he graduated in 1825.

Probably he appeared in print before that time, but his earliest volume was an anonymous and never avowed romance which was published in Boston in 1832. It attracted little attention, but among those who read it with a just appreciation of the author's genius was Mr. S. G. Goodrich, who immediately secured the shrouded star for The Token, of which he was editor, and through which many of Hawthorne's finest tales and essays were originally given to the public. He published in 1837 the first and in 1842 the second volume of his Twice-Told Tales, embracing whatever he wished to preserve from his contributions to the magazines; in 1845 he edited The Journal of an African Cruiser; in 1846 published Mosses from an Old Manse, a second collection of his magazine papers; in 1850 The Scarlet Letter, and in the last month the longest and in some respects the most remarkable of his works, The House of Seven Gables.

In the introductions to the Mosses from an Old Manse and The Scarlet Letter we have some glimpses of his personal history. He had been several years in the Custom-House at Boston, while Mr. Bancroft was collector, and afterwards had joined that remarkable association, the "Brook Farm Community," at West Roxbury, where, with others, he appears to have been reconciled to the old ways, as quite equal to the inventions of Fourier, St. Simon, Owen, and the rest of that ingenious company of schemers who have been so intent upon a reconstruction of the foundations of society. In 1843, he went to reside in the pleasant village of Concord, in the "Old Manse," which had never been profaned by a lay occupant until he entered it as his home. In the introduction to The Mosses he says:

"A priest had built it; a priest had succeeded to it; other priestly men, from time to time, had dwelt in it; and children, born in its chambers, had grown up to assume the priestly character. It was awful to reflect how many sermons must have been written there. The latest inhabitant alone—he, by whose translation to Paradise the dwelling was left vacant—had penned nearly three thousand discourses, besides the better, if not the greater number, that gushed living from his lips. How often, no doubt, had he paced to and fro along the avenue, attuning his meditations, to the sighs and gentle murmurs, and deep and solemn peals of the wind, among the lofty tops of the trees! In that variety of natural utterances, he could find something accordant with every passage of his sermon, were it of tenderness or reverential fear. The boughs over my head seemed shadowy with solemn thoughts, as well as with rustling leaves. I took shame to myself for having been[Pg 157] so long a writer of idle stories, and ventured to hope that wisdom would descend upon me with the falling leaves of the avenue; and that I should light upon an intellectual treasure, in the Old Manse, well worth those hoards of long-hidden gold, which people seek for in moss-grown houses. Profound treatises of morality—a layman's unprofessional, and therefore unprejudiced views of religion;—histories (such as Bancroft might have written, had he taken up his abode here, as he once purposed), bright with picture, gleaming over a depth of philosophic thought;—these were the works that might fitly have flowed from such a retirement. In the humblest event, I resolved at least to achieve a novel, that should evolve some deep lesson, and should possess physical substance enough to stand alone. In furtherance of my design, and as if to leave me no pretext for not fulfilling it, there was, in the rear of the house, the most delightful little nook of a study that ever offered its snug seclusion to a scholar. It was here that Emerson wrote 'Nature;' for he was then an inhabitant of the Manse, and used to watch the Assyrian dawn and the Paphian sunset and moonrise, from the summit of our eastern hill. When I first saw the room, its walls were blackened with the smoke of unnumbered years, and made still blacker by the grim prints of puritan ministers that hung around. These worthies looked strangely like bad angels, or, at least, like men who had wrestled so continually and so sternly with the devil, that somewhat of his sooty fierceness had been imparted to their own visages. They had all vanished now; a cheerful coat of paint, and gold tinted paper hangings, lighted up the small apartment; while the shadow of a willow-tree, that swept against the overhanging eaves, attempered the cheery western sunshine. In place of the grim prints there was the sweet and lovely head of one of Raphael's Madonnas, and two pleasant little pictures of the Lake of Como. The only other decorations were a purple vase of flowers, always fresh, and a bronze one containing graceful ferns. My books (few, and by no means choice; for they were chiefly such waifs as chance had thrown in my way) stood in order about the room, seldom to be disturbed."

In his home at Concord, thus happily described, in the midst of a few congenial friends, Hawthorne passed three years; and, "in a spot so sheltered from the turmoil of life's ocean," he says, "three years hasten away with a noiseless flight, as the breezy sunshine chases the cloud-shadows across the depths of a still valley." But at length his repose was invaded by that "spirit of improvement," which is so constantly marring the happiness of quiet-loving people, and he was compelled to look out for another residence.

"Now came hints, growing more and more distinct, that the owner of the old house was pining for his native air. Carpenters next appeared, making a tremendous racket among the outbuildings, strewing green grass with pine shavings and chips of chesnut joists, and vexing the whole antiquity of the place with their discordant renovations. Soon, moreover, they divested our abode of the veil of woodbine which had crept over a large portion of its southern face. All the aged mosses were cleared unsparingly away; and there were horrible whispers about brushing up the external walls with a coat of paint—a purpose as little to my taste as might be that of rouging the venerable cheeks of one's grandmother. But the hand that renovates is always more sacrilegious than that which destroys. In fine, we gathered up our household goods, drank a farewell cup of tea in our pleasant little breakfast-room—delicately-fragrant tea, an unpurchasable luxury, one of the many angel-gifts that had fallen like dew upon us—and passed forth between the tall stone gate-posts, as uncertain as the wandering Arabs where our tent might next be pitched. Providence took me by the hand, and—an oddity of dispensation which, I trust, there is no irreverence in smiling at—has led me, as the newspapers announce while I am writing, from the old Manse into a Custom House! As a story-teller, I have often contrived strange vicissitudes for my imaginary personages, but none like this. The treasure of intellectual gold which I had hoped to find in our secluded dwelling, had never come to light. No profound treatise of ethics—no philosophic history—no novel, even, that could stand unsupported on its edges—all that I had to show, as a man of letters, were these few tales and essays, which had blossomed out like flowers in the calm summer of my heart and mind."

The Mosses from an Old Manse he declared the last offering of their kind he should ever put forth; "unless I can do better," he wrote in this Introduction, "I have done enough in this kind." He went to his place in the Custom House, in his native city, and if President Taylor's advisers had not been apprehensive that in his devotion to ledgers he would neglect the more important duties of literature, perhaps we should have heard no more of him; but those patriotic men, remembering how much they had enjoyed the reading of the Twice-Told Tales and the Mosses, induced the appointment in his place of a whig, who had no capacity for making books, and in the spring of last year we had The Scarlet Letter.

Like most of his shorter stories, The Scarlet Letter finds its scene and time with the earlier Puritans. Its argument involves the analysis and action of remorse in the heart of a person who, himself unsuspected, is compelled to assist in the punishment of the partner of his guilt. This peculiar and powerful fiction at once arrested attention, and claimed for its author the eminence as a novelist which his previous performances had secured for him as a writer of tales. Its whole atmosphere and the qualities of its characters demanded for a creditable success very unusual capacities. The frivolous costume and brisk action of the story of fashionable life are easily depicted by the practised sketcher, but a work like The Scarlet Letter comes slowly upon the canvas, where passions are commingled and overlaid with the deliberate and masterly elaboration with which the grandest effects are produced in pictorial composition and coloring. It is a distinction of such works that while they are acceptable to the many, they also surprise and delight the few who appreciate the nicest arrangement and the most high and careful finish. The Scarlet[Pg 158] Letter will challenge consideration in the name of Art, in the best audience which in any age receives Cervantes, Le Sage, or Scott.

Following this romance came new editions of True Stories from History and Biography, a volume for youthful readers, and of the Twice-Told Tales. In the preface to the latter, underrating much the reputation he has acquired by them, he says:

"The author of Twice-Told Tales has a claim to one distinction, which, as none of his literary brethren will care about disputing it with him, he need not be afraid to mention. He was for a good many years the obscurest man of letters in America. These stories were published in magazines and annuals, extending over a period of ten or twelve years, and comprising the whole of the writer's young manhood, without making (so far as he has ever been aware) the slightest impression on the public. One or two among them, the Rill from the Town Pump, in perhaps a greater degree than any other, had a pretty wide newspaper circulation; as for the rest, he has no grounds for supposing that on their first appearance they met with the good or evil fortune to be read by any body. Throughout the time above specified he had no incitement to literary effort in a reasonable prospect of reputation or profit; nothing but the pleasure itself of composition—an enjoyment not at all amiss in its way, and perhaps essential to the merit of the work in hand, but which, in the long run, will hardly keep the chill out of a writer's heart, or the numbness out of his fingers. To this total lack of sympathy, at the age when his mind would naturally have been most effervescent, the public owe it (and it is certainly an effect not to be regretted, on either part), that the author can show nothing for the thought and industry of that portion of his life, save the forty sketches, or thereabouts, included in these volumes. Much more, indeed, he wrote; and some very small part of it might yet be rummaged out (but it would not be worth the trouble) among the dingy pages of fifteen or twenty year old periodicals, or within the shabby morocco covers of faded Souvenirs. The remainder of the works alluded to had a very brief existence, but, on the score of brilliancy, enjoyed a fate vastly superior to that of their brotherhood, which succeeded in getting through the press. In a word, the author burned them without mercy or remorse, and, moreover, without any subsequent regret, and had more than one occasion to marvel that such very dull stuff as he knew his condemned manuscripts to be, should yet have possessed inflammability enough to set the chimney on fire!...

"As he glances over these long-forgotten pages, and considers his way of life while composing them, the author can very clearly discern why all this was so. After so many sober years, he would have reason to be ashamed if he could not criticise his own work as fairly as another man's; and, though it is little his business and perhaps still less his interest, he can hardly resist a temptation to achieve something of the sort. If writers were allowed to do so, and would perform the task with perfect sincerity and unreserve, their opinions of their own productions would often be more valuable and instructive than the works themselves. At all events, there can be no harm in the author's remarking that he rather wonders how the Twice-Told Tales should have gained what vogue they did, than that it was so little and so gradual. They have the pale tint of flowers that blossomed in too retired a shade—the coolness of a meditative habit, which diffuses itself through the feeling and observation of every sketch. Instead of passion, there is sentiment; and, even in what purport to be pictures of actual life, we have allegory, not always so warmly dressed in its habiliments of flesh and blood as to be taken into the reader's mind without a shiver. Whether from lack of power or an unconquerable reserve, the author's touches have often an effect of tameness; the merriest man can hardly contrive to laugh at his broadest humor, the tenderest woman, one would suppose, will hardly shed warm tears at his deepest pathos. The book, if you would see any thing in it, requires to be read in the clear, brown, twilight atmosphere in which it was written; if opened in the sunshine, it is apt to look exceedingly like a volume of blank pages....

"The author would regret to be understood as speaking sourly or querulously of the slight mark made by his earlier literary efforts on the public at large. It is so far the contrary, that he has been moved to write this preface, chiefly as affording him an opportunity to express how much enjoyment he has owed to these volumes, both before and since their publication. They are the memorials of very tranquil, and not unhappy years. They failed, it is true—nor could it have been otherwise—in winning an extensive popularity. Occasionally, however, when he deemed them entirely forgotten, a paragraph or an article, from a native or foreign critic, would gratify his instincts of authorship with unexpected praise,—too generous praise, indeed, and too little alloyed with censure, which, therefore, he learned the better to inflict upon himself. And, by-the-by, it is a very suspicious symptom of a deficiency of the popular element in a book, when it calls forth no harsh criticism. This has been particularly the fortune of the Twice-Told Tales. They made no enemies, and were so little known and talked about, that those who read, and chanced to like them, were apt to conceive the sort of kindness for the book, which a person naturally feels for a discovery of his own. This kindly feeling (in some cases, at least) extended to the author, who, on the internal evidence of his sketches, came to be regarded as a mild, shy, gentle, melancholic, exceedingly sensitive, and not very forcible man, hiding his blushes under an assumed name, the quaintness of which was supposed, somehow or other, to symbolize his personal and literary traits. He is by no means certain that some of his subsequent productions have not been influenced and modified by a natural desire to fill up so amiable an outline, and to act in consonance with the character assigned to him; nor, even now, could he forfeit it without a few tears of tender sensibility. To conclude, however,—these volumes have opened the way to most agreeable associations, and to the formation of imperishable friendships; and there are many golden threads, interwoven with his present happiness, which he can follow up more or less directly, until he finds their commencement here; so that his pleasant pathway among realities seems to proceed out of the Dream-Land of his youth, and to be bordered with just enough of its shadowy foliage to shelter him from the heat of the[Pg 159] day. He is therefore satisfied with what the Twice-Told Tales have done for him, and feels it to be far better than fame."

That there should be any truth in this statement that the public was so slow to recognize so fine a genius, is a mortifying evidence of the worthlessness of a literary popularity. But it may be said of Hawthorne's fame that it has grown steadily, and that while many who have received the turbulent applause of the multitude since he began his career are forgotten, it has widened and brightened, until his name is among the very highest in his domain of art, to shine there with a lustre equally serene and enduring.

Mr. Hawthorne's last work is The House of Seven Gables, a romance of the present day. It is not less original, not less striking, not less powerful, than The Scarlet Letter. We doubt indeed whether he has elsewhere surpassed either of the three strongly contrasted characters of the book. An innocent and joyous child-woman, Phœbe Pyncheon, comes from a farm-house into the grand and gloomy old mansion where her distant relation, Hepzibah Pyncheon, an aristocratical and fearfully ugly but kind-hearted unmarried woman of sixty, is just coming down from her faded state to keep in one of her drawing-rooms a small shop, that she may be able to maintain an elder brother who is every moment expected home from a prison to which in his youth he had been condemned unjustly, and in the silent solitude of which he has kept some lineaments of gentleness while his hair has grown white, and a sense of beauty while his brain has become disordered and his heart has been crushed and all present influences of beauty have been quite shut out. The House of Seven Gables is the purest piece of imagination in our prose literature.

The characteristics of Hawthorne which first arrest the attention are imagination and reflection, and these are exhibited in remarkable power and activity in tales and essays, of which the style is distinguished for great simplicity, purity and tranquillity. His beautiful story of Rappacini's Daughter was originally published in the Democratic Review, as a translation from the French of one M. de l'Aubépine, a writer whose very name, he remarks in a brief introduction, (in which he gives in French the titles of some of his tales, as Contes deux foix racontées, Le Culte du Feu, etc.) "is unknown to many of his countrymen, as well as to the student of foreign literature." He describes himself, under this nomme de plume, as one who—

"Seems to occupy an unfortunate position between the transcendentalists (who under one name or another have their share in all the current literature of the world), and the great body of pen-and-ink men who address the intellect and sympathies of the multitude. If not too refined, at all events too remote, too shadowy and unsubstantial, in his mode of development, to suit the taste of the latter class, and yet too popular to a satisfy the spiritual or metaphysical requisitions of the former, he must necessarily find himself without an audience, except here and there an individual, or possibly an isolated clique."

"Are not altogether destitute of fancy and originality; they might have won him greater reputation but for an inveterate love of allegory, which is apt to invest his plots and characters with the aspect of scenery and people in the clouds, and to steal away the human warmth out of his conceptions. His fictions are sometimes historical, sometimes of the present day, and sometimes, so far as can be discovered, have little or no reference either to time or space. In any case, he generally contents himself with a very slight embroidery of outward manners,—the faintest possible counterfeit of real life,—and endeavors to create an interest by some less obvious peculiarity of the subject. Occasionally a breath of nature, a rain-drop of pathos and tenderness, or a gleam of humor, will find its way into the midst of his fantastic imagery, and make us feel as if, after all, we were yet within the limits of our native earth. We will only add to this cursory notice, that M. de l'Aubépine's productions, if the reader chance to take them in precisely the proper point of view, may amuse a leisure hour as well as those of a brighter man; if otherwise, they can hardly fail to look excessively like nonsense."

Hawthorne is as accurately as he is happily described in this curious piece of criticism, though no one who takes his works in the "proper point of view," will by any means agree to the modest estimate which, in the perfect sincerity of his nature, he has placed upon them. He is original, in invention, construction, and expression, always picturesque, and sometimes in a high degree dramatic. His favorite scenes and traditions are those of his own country, many of which he has made classical by the beautiful associations that he has thrown around them. Every thing to him is suggestive, as his own pregnant pages are to the congenial reader. All his productions are life-mysteries, significant of profound truths. His speculations, often bold and striking, are presented with singular force, but with such a quiet grace and simplicity as not to startle until they enter in and occupy the mind. The gayety with which his pensiveness is occasionally broken, seems more than any thing else in his works to have cost some effort. The gentle sadness, the "half-acknowledged melancholy," of his manner and reflections, are more natural and characteristic.

His style is studded with the most poetical imagery, and marked in every part with the happiest graces of expression, while it is calm, chaste, and flowing, and transparent as water. There is a habit among nearly all the writers of imaginative literature, of adulterating the conversations of the poor with barbarisms and grammatical blunders which have no more fidelity than elegance. Hawthorne's integrity as well as his exquisite—taste prevented him from falling into this error. There is not in the world a large rural population that speaks its native language with a purity approaching that with which the English is spoken by the[Pg 160] common people of New England. The vulgar words and phrases which in other states are supposed to be peculiar to this part of the country are unknown east of the Hudson, except to the readers of foreign newspapers, or the listeners to low comedians who find it profitable to convey such novelties into Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont. We are glad to see a book that is going down to the next ages as a representative of national manners and character in all respects correct.

Nathaniel Hawthorne is among the first of the first order of our writers, and in their peculiar province his works are not excelled in the literature of the present day or of the English language.

YEAST: A PROBLEM.

The Rev. Mr. Kingsley, author of Alton Locke, has collected into a book the series of vehement and yeasty papers which have appeared from his pen in Fraser's Magazine under the above title, and a new impulse is thus given in England to the discussion of the Problem of Society. The declared object of the work—which is of the class of philosophical novels—is to exhibit the miseries of the poor; the conventionalisms, hypocrisies, and feebleness of the rich; the religious doubts of the strong, and the miserable delusions and superstitions of the weak; the mammon-worship of the middling and upper classes, and the angry humility of the masses. The story is very slight, but sufficient for the effective presentation of the author's opinions. The best characters are an Irish parson, a fox-hunting squire and his commonplace worldly wife, and a thoughtless and reckless but not unkind man of the world. Here is a sketch of a commonplace old English vicar, such as has been familiar in the pages of novels and essays time out of mind:

"He told me, hearing me quote Schiller, to beware of the Germans, for they were all Pantheists at heart. I asked him whether he included Lange and Bunsen, and it appeared that he had never read a German book in his life. He then flew furiously at Mr. Carlyle, and I found that all he knew of him was from a certain review in the Quarterly. He called Boëhmen a theosophic Atheist. I should have burst out at that, had I not read the very words in a High Church review, the day before, and hoped that he was not aware of the impudent falsehood which he was retailing. Whenever I feebly interposed an objection to any thing he said (for, after all he talked on), he told me to hear the Catholic Church. I asked him which Catholic Church? He said the English. I asked him whether it was to be the Church of the sixth century, or the thirteenth, or the seventeenth, or the eighteenth? He told me the one and eternal Church, which belonged as much to the nineteenth century as to the first. I begged to know whether, then, I was to hear the Church according to Simeon, or according to Newman, or according to St. Paul; for they seemed to me a little at variance? He told me, austerely enough, that the mind of the Church was embodied in her Liturgy and Articles. To which I answered, that the mind of the episcopal clergy might, perhaps, be; but, then, how happened it that they were always quarreling and calling hard names about the sense of those very documents? And so I left him, assuring him that living in the nineteenth century, I wanted to hear the Church of the nineteenth century, and no other; and should be most happy to listen to her, as soon as she had made up her mind what to say."

English travellers in America give very minute accounts of the bad grammar and questionable pronunciation they sometimes hear among our common people: with what advantage they might go into the rural neighborhoods of their own country for exhibitions in this line is shown by the following description of a scene in a booth, which one of the characters of Mr. Kingsley enters at night:

"Sadder and sadder, Lancelot tried to listen to the conversation of the men around him. To his astonishment he hardly understood a word of it. It was half articulate, nasal, guttural, made up almost entirely of vowels, like the speech of savages. He had never before been struck with the significant contrast between the sharp, clearly-defined articulation, the vivid and varied tones of the gentleman, or even of the London street-boy, when compared with the coarse, half-formed growls, as of a company of seals, which he heard round him. That single fact struck him perhaps more deeply than any; it connected itself with many of physiological fancies; it was the parent of many thoughts and plans of his after-life. Here and there he could distinguish a half sentence. An old shrunken man opposite him was drawing figures in the spilt beer with his pipestem, and discoursing of the glorious times before the great war, 'when there was more food than there were mouths, and more work than there hands.' 'Poor human nature,' thought Lancelot, as he tried to follow one of those unintelligible discussions about the relative prices of the loaf and the bushel of flour, which ended, as usual, in more swearing and more quarreling, and more beer to make it up: 'poor human nature! always looking back, as the German sage says, to some fancied golden age, never looking forward to the real one which is coming."

The descriptive powers of the author are illustrated in many fine passages, of which this delineation of an English day in March will serve as a specimen:

"A silent, dim, distanceless, steaming, rotting day in March. The last brown oak-leaf, which had stood out the winter's frost, spun and quivered plump down, and then lay, as if ashamed to have broken for a moment the ghastly stillness, like an awkward guest at a great dumb dinner-party. A cold suck of wind just proved its existence, by toothaches on the north side of all faces. The spiders, having been weather-be-witched the night before, had unanimously agreed to cover every brake and brier with gossamer-cradles, and never a fly to be caught in them; like Manchester cotton-spinners madly glutting the markets in the teeth of 'no demand.' The steam crawled out of the dank turf, and reeked off the flanks and nostrils of the shivering horses, and clung with clammy paws to frosted hats and dripping boughs. A soulless, skyless, catarrhal day, as if that bustling dowager, old mother[Pg 161] Earth—what with match-making in spring, and fêtes champetres in summer, and dinner-giving in autumn—was fairly worn out, and put to bed with the influenza, under wet blankets and the cold-water cure."

"Yeast," says the Spectator, "may be looked at as a series of sketches, loosely strung together, descriptive of palpable social evils in the mass, and of metaphysical broodings among the more thoughtful youth; a struggle which perhaps is always taking place, and which is no further distinctive of the present age than the form that is given by our intellectual and religious activity. The origin of evil, its presence in the world, what man was made for, what he struggles for, what becomes of him, have been questions that excited the speculative of all ages, taking various channels according to the circumstances of the time. Considered from this point of view, as a life-like picture of the heavings of the mass, and the mental fermentation going on among individuals—of the yeast of society—the book displays great ability, and challenges careful attention. It is powerful, earnest, feeling, and eloquent; the production of a man acquainted with society, who has looked closely upon its various classes, and has the power of reading the signs of the times. He has a truthful vigor of description, a rhetorical rather than a dramatic power; or he sacrifices the latter to his habit of expressing his opinions in dialogue, where the author talks rather than the dramatis personæ. There is a genial warmth of feeling in the book, and wide human sympathies, but with a tendency to extremes in statement and opinion—a disposition to deepen the shadows of English life; for go where the author would, pictures quite as bad or worse may be drawn of the condition of mankind, from the 'noble savage,' the beau ideal of Rousseau, to the educated 'Prussian,' who was within a little while the model man of a certain school of philosophers."

THE LITTLENESS OF A GREAT PEOPLE.

The future historians of this age will have to record no more mortifying illustration of the difficulties which in a republic prevent the success of great ideas than that which is presented in the case of Mr. Whitney, who early in the last month sailed for England. We transcribe with especial approval the following paragraphs respecting him and his labors, from the Tribune:

"If we are not mistaken, it is now nearly ten years since Mr. Whitney first devoted himself to his great project, and he has pursued it with a force of purpose, an intelligent apprehension of all its bearings and consequences upon the world, a nobility of ambition, and a sustained, intellectual enthusiasm which belongs to the rarest and most admirable characters. We do not know in any country a man in whom great intellectual and practical elements are more happily combined. It is not with the warm partiality of private friendship that we thus speak of Mr. Whitney, for, like all men of ideas, and all of nature positive and deep enough to have a special mission in the world, he puts others into relation with the thoughts which engage him rather than with his own personality, and you become intimate with them, not with him. A native, as we believe, of Connecticut, brought up to business in this city, where he acquired a competence, having conceived the idea of a vaster and more inspiring enterprise than the political and industrial world had ever attempted, he quitted the pursuits of trade, and the certain wealth they promised him, to perfect and realize his conception. He studied the great routes of the world, and the causes of their adoption. In a residence in Europe and by voyages in the East he made himself acquainted with the facts relating to the trade and productive capacities of Asia. He thoroughly surveyed and mastered the whole subject before beginning its discussion. Then he proposed the scheme to his countrymen, and for many years has sought exclusively to commend it to their favor. He has travelled in every direction, addressing public bodies and meetings of citizens, writing newspaper articles and pamphlets, and sparing no occasion to bring the idea and the facts connected with it to the knowledge of all. Wherever he has gone he has left some sparks of his own genial enthusiasm. The plan has found advocates in every section; many state legislatures have formally endorsed it, and a large party in Congress have been in its favor. Dependent altogether on his own pecuniary resources, Mr. Whitney, without compensation or assistance, has labored with a constancy and fidelity which could only proceed from a great purpose. But after this period of arduous exertion he has failed to carry his plan through Congress, while a great part of the lands on which he must depend for its execution, have already passed from the control of the federal Legislature. Accordingly, though he would greatly prefer that his own country should reap the splendid harvest of honor and substantial power which the building of this world's highway would assure, he has no choice but to consider the means which may be offered him for making it through British America. To the world at large the consequences would be the same, though to the United States very different.

"The route through British America is, in some respects, even preferable to that through our own territory. By the former, the distance from Europe to Asia is some thousand miles shorter than by the latter. Passing close to the northern shore of Lake Superior, traversing the watershed which divides the streams flowing toward the Arctic Sea from those which have their exit southward, and crossing the Rocky Mountains at an elevation some three thousand, feet less than at the South Pass, the road could here be constructed with comparative cheapness, and would open up a region abounding in valuable timber and other natural products, and admirably suited to the growth of grain and to grazing. Having its Atlantic seaport at Halifax, and its Pacific Depot near Vancouver's Island, it would inevitably draw to it the commerce of Europe, Asia, and the United States. Thus British America, from a mere colonial dependency, would assume a controlling rank in the world. To her other nations would be tributary, and in vain would the United States attempt to be her rival; for we could never dispute with her the possession of the Asiatic commerce, or the power which that confers.[Pg 162]"

But the matter reaches beyond the suggestions of national interest, and has a wider scope than the mere sentiment of patriotism. We have hoped that this republic might make the easy effort necessary to grasp a prize so magnificent, but we shall hail with satisfaction the actual commencement of such a work, wherever and by whomsoever it is undertaken.

A JEW AND A CHRISTIAN.

A few days ago, a man of various genius and acquirement, with whose writings people of many countries have been delighted, entered an office, holding in his hand two black-bordered notes, inviting him to funerals.

Two persons very unlike each other. Truly I have never known more striking contrasts. I was meditating of popular prejudices by which their lives were more or less affected, by which their reputations were certainly much affected: one was a Jew, and the other a Christian.

I was very poor when I came to this country. I sought occupation in the pursuits for which I was best fitted by my education: for a time with little success; and at length I was offered for the translation of two wretched French novels, the meager sum of fifty dollars. I sold some of my wife's trinkets to purchase paper and ink, and worked diligently, you can guess how many weeks, until they were in English as readable as the French of their author. The task accomplished, I went to my patron, expecting of course to have the pittance counted down in current notes or gold; but——the market for such literature was by this time over stocked; he had supplied it too liberally; and with some insulting excuse he refused the manuscripts.

Yes—he was rich—always speculating in the sweat of brains—and we had business relations afterward.

I chanced one day to meet a gentleman, with whom I had no personal acquaintance, though our names were known to each other, and conversing of a subject with which I was familiar he inquired if I would write something upon it for his journal. I replied that I would be very happy to do so, and as we shook hands, at parting, he left in my palm two twenty-dollar notes. He would gladly have avoided a word of explanation, but seeing my surprise he said, "It is merely a retainer, as the lawyers have it; consider it upon account of the articles you will write me." I wrote the articles; it was but an evening's work; and wrote frequently afterward for the same person, always receiving a liberal reward—always more than I asked—though my employer was himself by no means rich. You will think that in the first place he expected a profit for the money he gave me, but I knew better: he cared not a fig for the papers I was to prepare; he simply suspected that I was in need of money, and took that delicate way to relieve me, as, in his time, he relieved hundreds of men.

A noble characteristic of a man perhaps in all respects deserving of admiration: But what of the prejudice you were meditating?

It is this—that even in this land, where many an old world superstition has found life impossible—the community regard a Jew as an incarnation of all selfishness, meanness and dishonor. A hundred to one, being told that the hero of one of these two histories was an Israelite, would swear instantly that the name of him who swindled me was Moses. But it was not: that person will to-morrow have Christian burial, and the other—one of the most sincere and generous men of the age, was an officer of the synagogue. You know—we both know—that the Hebrew race are not only before the other races in all fine intelligence, but that in defiance of prejudices and disabilities which might turn any other people into hordes of robbers, they are of the most honorable portion of mankind.

POLICARPA LA SALVARIETTA,

THE HEROINE OF COLOMBIA.

There are not many subjects for poetry or romance in American history more suggestive than that furnished in the following incidents, translated from Restrepo's Historia de la Revolucion de la Colombia:

"After the standard of liberty had been raised in all the provinces, and the people had struck a successful blow for freedom, Morillo, with an overwhelming force, re-conquered the country for Spain. During six months this fiendish savage held undisputed sway over Colombia. The best men of the provinces were by him seized and shot, and each of his officers had the power of death over the inhabitants of the districts in which they were stationed. It was during this period that the barbarous execution of Policarpa La Salvarietta—a heroic girl of New Granada—roused the Patriots once more to arms, and produced in them a determination to expel their oppressors or die. This young lady was enthusiastically attached to the cause of liberty, and had, by her influence, rendered essential aid to the Patriots. The wealth of her father, and her own superior talents and education, early excited the hostility of the Spanish commander against her and her family. She had promised her hand in marriage to a young officer in the Patriot service, who had been compelled by Morillo to join the Spanish army as a private soldier. La Salvarietta, by means that were never disclosed, obtained, through him an exact account of the Spanish forces, and a plan of their fortifications. The Patriots were preparing to strike a decisive blow, and this intelligence was important to their success. She had induced Sabarain, her lover, and eight others, to desert. They were discovered, and apprehended. The letters of La Salvarietta, found on the person of her lover, betrayed her to the vengeance of the tyrant of her country. She was seized, brought to the Spanish camp, and tried by court martial. The highest rewards were promised her if she would disclose the names and plans of her associates. The inducements proving of no avail, torture[Pg 163] was employed to wring from her the secret, in which so many of the best families of Colombia were interested, but even on the rack she persisted in making no disclosure. The accomplished young lady, hardly eighteen years of age, was condemned to be shot. She calmly and serenely heard her sentence, and prepared to meet her fate. She confessed to a Catholic priest, partook of the sacrament, and with a firm step walked to the open square, where a file of soldiers, in presence of Morillo and his officers, were drawn up, with loaded muskets. Turning to Morillo, she said, "I shall not die in vain, for my blood will raise up heroes from every hill and valley of my country." She had scarcely uttered the above, when Morillo himself gave the signal to the soldiers to fire, and in the next moment La Salvarietta was a mangled and bleeding corpse. The Spanish officers and soldiers were overwhelmed with astonishment at the firmness and patriotism of this lovely girl, but the effect upon her own countrymen was electrical. The Patriots lost no time in flying to arms, and their war cry, "La Salvarietta!" made every heart burn to inflict vengeance upon her murderers. In a very short time the army of Morillo was nearly cut to pieces, and the commander himself escaped death only by flight, and in disguise."

In Mexico a dramatic piece, which we have seen described as possessing considerable merit, has been founded upon this tragical history. In the Spanish American wars there have been numerous instances of remarkable heroism by women, which is the more noticeable for the little the sex has had to gain by the political independence of the Spanish race on this continent.

A REAL AMERICAN SAINT.

Mrs. Jameson, in her beautiful book lately published in London, Legends of the Monastic Orders, has the following account of the only American woman ever canonized:

"Santa Rosa di Lima was born at Lima, in Peru, in 1586. This flower of sanctity, whose fragrance has filled the whole Christian world, is the patroness of America, the St. Theresa of Transatlantic Spain. She was distinguished, in the first place, by her austerities. 'Her usual food was an herb bitter as wormwood. When compelled by her mother to wear a wreath of roses, she so adjusted it on her brow that it became a crown of thorns. Rejecting a host of suitors, she destroyed the lovely complexion to which she owed her name, by an application of pepper and quicklime. But she was also a noble example of filial devotion, and maintained her once wealthy parents, fallen on evil days, by the labor of her hands.' All day she toiled in a garden, and at night she worked with her needle. She took the habit of the third order of St. Dominic, and died in 1617. She was canonized by Clement X. According to the Peruvian legend, the Pope, when entreated to canonize her, absolutely refused, exclaiming, 'India y santa! asi como llueven rosas!' (India and saint! as much so as that it rains roses!') Whereupon, a miraculous shower of roses began to fall in the Vatican, and ceased not till the incredulous pontiff acknowledged himself convinced."

Authors and Books.

We have already briefly spoken of Dr. Andree's work on America which is now publishing at Brunswick, Germany, by the house of Westermann, a branch of which is established in this city at the corner of Broadway and Duane-streets. The book in question is to consist of three volumes of some six hundred and fifty octavo pages each, devoted respectively to North, Central, and South America. It is published in numbers of some eighty pages each; of these numbers four are already issued, and we have read them with great satisfaction. The broad and philosophical spirit, the exhaustive learning, and the spirited and picturesque style of Dr. Andree are beyond praise; among all the books on America which we have met with this impresses us as unique, and if the remainder shall prove equal to what is already published, we hope that some American publisher may undertake a translation of the whole into English.

The work opens with an introduction of some forty odd pages, in which, first, the physical characteristics of the new world are set forth with great clearness and beauty: its mountains, rivers, lakes, climate, vegetable and animal kingdoms; the origin of the aboriginal inhabitants, their languages, races, manners, customs, and civilization; the settlements of Europeans, the Spaniards, the Spanish and Portuguese states, the Creoles, Mexico, Brazil, &c. Amalgamation of races, the negroes, Slavery, influence of the Latin races, the Teutonic race, the United States, their growth and destiny, are made the subjects of a continuous discussion, remarkable alike for an air at least of breadth and profundity, careful and comprehensive knowledge, and for concise and often eloquent expression. The introduction is followed by chapters on Iceland, Greenland, and the various expeditions to the polar regions of the north, treating those topics both historically and ethnographically, and with a clear presentation of every interesting and important fact. Next follows a general survey of the continent north of the fiftieth, degree of latitude, its rivers, lakes, forests, animals, men, and commerce, including an account of the various Indian tribes, and the trading companies dealing with them. The trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company, Lord Selkirk's colony on Red River, Labrador, Newfoundland, the British Possessions on the West coast, Russian America, are successively treated. Next the Indians in Canada and the United States are considered at length, in respect of their history, traditions, languages, monuments, customs, the influence of the whites upon them, and their probable destiny. In this connection we notice that Dr. Andree frequently cites Gallatin, Schoolcraft, Squier, and other American writers. The remainder of the first volume will treat of the United States, their political history and organization, their soil, climate, people, &c., not failing to give whatever information may be useful to the[Pg 164] European settler looking for a new home, as well as to the savan looking for light upon ethnographic and social problems.

From this general outline the scope of the book may be inferred, but our readers will permit us to refer to one or two points which are dwelt upon in the introduction. Dr. Andree contends with the earnestness of a determined partisan for the originality of the vegetable and animal creations, as well as of the human race upon this continent, rejecting entirely the theory that either was transplanted from the eastern hemisphere. The unity of the human family, he maintains with a class of writers distinguishable chiefly for a sleepless activity in assailing the authority of the Christian religion, does not require the assumption of numerical identity of origin, but rather the contrary. "It is not necessary," he says, "to assume the arithmetical oneness of mankind, and the derivation of all from a single pair, thus arbitrarily confining and limiting the creative power of the Highest Being;" and this position he proceeds to advocate by a variety of arguments, at the same time controverting the opposite opinion, and especially the notion of the late Major Noah that the Indians of this continent were descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel. In this impertinence is the only noteworthy fault we discover in the book. Discussions of such controverted points as this belong exclusively to the audience of scholars. A far more interesting and satisfactory part of the introduction is that devoted to the Spanish and Portuguese in America, and their influence on the native tribes, and vice versa. The contrast which these races and the states they have founded exhibit to the Germanic race in North America is brought out by Dr. Andree in a striking manner. All the South American republics except Chili are in a condition of comparative or actual disorder: no signs of expanding life and progress are visible among them; every where the conflict of races and castes is active or only partially suppressed; Brazil alone, by the monarchical form of its executive, (though its institutions are fundamentally democratic,) is spared from the anarchy which prevails among its neighbors, and there too, alone, the black, yellow, and red races are politically equal and in the way of complete amalgamation; but in all these states the European element, instead of growing more powerful and influential, tends constantly to greater weakness, and is likely to be completely absorbed and swallowed up; since the wars of independence the white race has diminished, not increased in number; and instead of conferring on the native races the civilization and refinement which was its native property, it is so far dominated by them as to relapse toward their ignorance and rudeness; and after three centuries all Spanish America, the West Indies included, contains not more than fifteen millions of inhabitants, about a fifth of whom are whites, that is to say as many as are found in the State of New-York alone. Or, reckoning for all America south of the United States, five millions of whites, this population still falls far short of that which within thirty years has taken possession of the country between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. Such is the difference between the Latin and the Saxon races. The latter has spread itself with astonishing rapidity, never mixing, to any extent, with negroes or Indians, nor allowing mixed races to get the upper hand, or even exercise any influence. The Anglo-Saxon civilizes the other races or devotes them to extinction. And yet South America is naturally better than North. It is richer and more productive, and endowed with a system of rivers compared with which that of the Mississippi seems trifling. Had it been settled by Anglo-Saxons and Germans instead of Creoles and mixed breeds, it would long since have worn another aspect; steamboats would have covered the rivers up to the very foot of the Cordilleras, and the vast plains would have been occupied by flourishing towns and cultivated fields.

The parallel which Dr. Andree draws between the history of the United States and Europe for the last fifty years is so strikingly put, that we make room for a single passage by way of specimen:

"A comparison of the history of Europe and of North America during the time since the first French revolution is in every respect to the advantage of the United States. The old world has been convulsed by wars, a military emperor has had the sway of Europe, and broken kingdoms into fragments; blood has flowed in torrents, and thousands of millions have been wasted for unproductive purposes and on royal vanity. Since the fall of the Great Soldier the nations have incessantly risen against their rulers, and more than a million of men now stand in arms to restrain the people and serve the passions of monarchs and their cabinets. Only sixty years ago the entire valley of the Mississippi was still a desert, a wide wilderness, with hardly here and there a settlement. Now we see this empire in subjection—conquered, not by soldiers, with waving banners and sounding trumpets, but by the toil of the farmer, the skill of the artisan, the enterprising spirit of the merchant. They have drained morasses, cleared up forests, opened roads, dug canals, built ships, and founded flourishing states. Within the period of two generations they have peopled that wilderness with ten millions of industrious inhabitants, and opened a new home to the arts of peace, to civil and religious liberty, to culture and progress. In these sixty years, not so much blood has been shed in wars against Indians in the Mississippi valley as in one of the hundreds of battles fought by the soldiers of European states, most of them for useless or even pernicious ends. No blessing has followed the wars and conquests in Europe, but in the Great West, conquered by labor and enterprise, all is progress and unexampled prosperity."

There are numerous other passages[Pg 165] tempting us to translate them, but our space is already exhausted, and we forbear.

We have already taken occasion to commend the Tausend und ein Tag im Orient (Thousand and One Days in the East) by Bodenstedt, the well-known author of the Wars of the Circassians. No writer gives so just an insight into the character of that portion of the great Oriental family which he visited—the Circassians and Georgians. The second part of his present book (lately published at Berlin) contains some interesting criticisms of a Tartar poet, whom Bodenstedt knew at Tiflis, upon European poetry. Our traveller, partly by way of practice in the Tartar language, and partly to inspire his eastern friend with greater respect for the bards of the Occident, used to translate English and German songs into Tartar. Mirza Shaffy, the name of the Tartar sage and poet, proved himself no contemptible critic of these foreign productions. Not once could he be induced to tolerate a poem whose only merit was the beauty and melody of its language in the original, nor to swallow the mere sentimentalism which plays so great a part in German poetry especially. This sentimentalism, says Bodenstedt, is as unknown as it is unintelligible to the Oriental poet. He aims always at a real and tangible object, and in gaining it puts heaven and earth in motion. No image is too remote, no thought too lofty for his purpose. The new moon is a golden shoe for the hoof of his heroes' steed. The stars are golden nails, with which the Lord has fastened the sky, lest it should fall with admiration and desire for his fair one. The cypresses and cedars grow only to recall the lithe and graceful form of Selma. The weeping willow droops her green hair to the water, grieving because she is not slender like Selma. The eyes of his beloved are suns which make all the faithful fire-worshippers. The sun itself is but a gleaming lyre, whose beams are golden strings, whence the dawn draws the loveliest accords to the praise of the earth's beauty and the power of love.

Mirza Shaffy was a great lover of Moore and Byron, and some of their songs which were translated needed no explanation to render them intelligible to him. Wolfe's marvellous poem on the death of Sir John Moore made a deep impression on him, and was a special favorite. Goëthe and Heine he liked greatly, especially Goethe's song of Mignon, "Knowst thou the Land," and Heine's Fisher's Song (which Schubert has set to such delicious and befitting music) which ends—

Schiller he could not so well understand, and often the attempt adequately to translate this poet had to be given up in despair. However, Mirza Shaffy admitted that some of his poems had substance in them. Uhland and Geibel were not much to his mind. One day, Bodenstedt translated into Tartar a song by the latter, which we in our turn thus render into English:

"The conclusion is foolish," replied the Tartar; "what does the swan gain by fainting?—he only suffers himself, and does no good to the rose. I would have ended—

Mr. Ross, the editor of Allgemeine Auswanderungszeitung (Universal Journal of Emigration), an excellent and useful German periodical, has just published in Germany the Auswanderer's Handbuch (Emigrant's Manual), devoted especially to the service of those who design emigrating to the United States. His manual is a valuable collection of whatever a new comer into this country should know. The constitution and political arrangements of the Union, its legislation, its means of intercourse, the peculiarities of soil and climate proper to different sections, the state of agriculture, and the chances of employment for persons of different classes, professions, and degrees of education, are all given. Mr. Ross was himself born in the United States, and understands what he writes about. At the same time his book gives a fair and thorough view of the difficulties with which the emigrant to this country must contend.

At Pesth, Hungary, is about to appear a biographical work on Hungarian statesmen and orators who were prominent before the revolutionary period. Paul Nagy, Eugen Beöthy, Franz Déak, Stephan Bezerédy, Bartholomaus Szemere, the two Wesselenyis, the two Dionys Pazmandys, Stephan Szechényi, and Joseph Eötvos (the last known in the United States by translations of his novels), are among the characters described.

A new book on the new world is the Europa ed America, by Dr. Ant. Caccia, an Italian litterateur, who has apparently been in this country and describes it, as he professes to do, from nature. He says that he found the people of New-York occupied mainly in making money.[Pg 166]

The German authoress Fanny Lewald, has in press a book entitled England und Schottland (England and Scotland), made up from the notes of a journey through those countries. Its publication just at this moment is for the benefit of the crowds of Germans who are going to the World's Fair, and who may find in it all sorts of preparatory information. A specimen chapter published in one of our German papers reads pleasantly. Fanny Lewald is a phenomenon, of a class of women who know something about every thing. Nothing is too high or too low to become an object of consideration to these female Teufelsdröcks, petticoated professors of "the science of things in general." The intellectual cultivation among the middle and higher class of society in Prussia, the patronage bestowed by the court upon learning, the arts, and sciences; the encouragement to discuss freely every imaginable theme in politics or religion, with the single exception of the measures of the administration, all tended to create a taste for mental display in which it was necessary that women should participate, if they wished to retain their old position in the social world. In the salons of Berlin, therefore, women have been heard taking a prominent part in conversations in which the most abstruse questions in religion, politics, and general science were discussed. The philosophers, male and female, debarred by the spy system from any open investigation of passing political events, revenged themselves by treating these events as mere temporary phases of the great system of evolutions which forms the material of history, scarcely worthy of notice, and directed their attention to the great principles which underlie all great social and religious developments. A strange tone was thus given to conversation. Listening to the talkers at a Berlin conversazione, one might have fancied, judging from the nature of the subjects of conversation, that a number of gods and goddesses were debating on the construction of a world. Vulgar bricks and mortar they ignored, and were anxious only about primary and secondary geological formations. The actual state of any society was scarcely cared for, except in illustration of a principle, and the great forces which must unite to form the best possible society, were the only subjects of investigation. It may be taken as a great proof of the wonderful facility of adaptation of the female mind, that women joined in these conversations as readily as men, and frequently with far more brilliancy, in spite of the range of reading which it must require to obtain even a superficial knowledge of the subjects of discourse. Fanny Lewald is one of these prodigies. She has studied every thing from the Hegelian philosophy downwards. She is as great in revolutions as in ribbons, and is as amusing when talking sentiment over oysters and Rheinwein, in the Rathskiller at Bremen, as when meditating upon ancient art and philosophy in Wilhelm von Humboldt's castle of Tegel near Berlin.

We have read with great interest a series of articles which have appeared in the recent numbers of the Grenzboten upon George Sand. Though we have often failed to agree with the view of the writer, Mr. Julian Schmidt, one of the editors of that paper, we have rarely met with literary criticism of more ability, and a more just and catholic spirit. We translate the conclusion of the last article, in which Mr. Schmidt gives the result of his careful analysis of all the works of the author: "The novel, on account of its lax and variable form, and the caprice which it tolerates, is in my opinion not to be reckoned among those kinds of art, which, as classic, will endure to posterity. The authors who have been most read in modern times have already been checked in their popularity by the greater attraction of novelty offered by their successors. This is the case even with Walter Scott. Besides, in most of her writings, George Sand has dealt with problems whose justification later times will not understand; and thus it may happen that hereafter she will be regarded as of consequence in the history of literature alone. But in that sphere she will have a permanent importance. Future centuries will regard her as the most significant image of the morbid but intense striving which marks this generation. When it has long been agreed that the lauded works of Victor Hugo, Eugene Sue, Lamartine, Alfred de Musset, and others, are but the barren outgrowths of an untamed and unrestrained fancy, and a perverted reflection; when the same verdict has been pronounced on the poems of M. de Chateaubriand, whose value is now taken as a matter of belief and confidence, because there are few who have read them; then the true poetic element in the works of George Sand will, in spite of all its vagaries, still be recognized. And more than this, since the period of sentimentalism will be seen as more extensive, and as the works of Richardson, Rousseau (of course only those which belong in this category), and of Madame de Staël and others, will be included in it, then we say that the better productions of our authoress will carry off the prize from all the rest."

Two collections of songs, national and lyric, have made their appearance in Germany. The one is by George Scherer, and is called Deutsche Volkshelier, the other, by Wolfgand Menzel, is entitled Die Gesange der Volker (The Songs of the Nations). The former is exclusively German; the latter contains songs from every civilized tongue under heaven, as well as from many of the uncivilized, in German versions, of course. Both are elegantly printed, and highly commended by the knowing in that line of literature.

Henri Murger has published a companion volume to his Scènes de la Bohéme in the shape of some stories called Scènes de la Vie de Jeunesse.[Pg 167]

A curious specimen of what may be done by a ready writer who is scrupulous only about getting his pay, is afforded by a book just published at Leipzic, called Zahme Geschichten aus wilder Zeit (Tame Stories of a Wild Time), by Frederick Ebeling. In these "tame stories" the heroes of the late revolutionary movements are held up now in one light, and now in another, with the most striking disregard of consistency. Jellachich, for instance, is lauded in one place as the most genial and charming of men, a scholar and gentleman, without equal, and almost in the next page he is called a ferocious butcher, who never wearies of slaughtering human beings. These discrepancies are accounted for by the fact that Mr. Ebeling wrote for both conservative and radical journals, and adapted his opinions to the wants of the market he was serving. He would have done well to reconcile his articles with each other before putting them into a book.

A valuable work on national law is entitled Du Droits et des Devoirs des Nations Neutres en Temps de Guerre Maritime, by M. L. B. Hautefeuille, a distinguished French jurist, lately published at Paris in four octavos. It is praised by no less an authority than the eminent advocate M. Chaix d'Est Ange, as the fruit of mature and conscientious study: he calls it the most complete and one of the best works on modern national law ever produced. The author in the historical part of his treatise, criticises the monopolizing spirit and policy of the English without mercy, and insists that the balance of power on the sea is of no less importance than that on land. He would have established a permanent alliance of armed neutrality, with France and the United States at its head, to maintain the maritime rights of weaker states in time of war, against the encroachments of British commerce and ambition.

A Vienna publishing establishment has offered Grillparzer, the German dramatist, $4,000 for his writings, but he refuses, not because he thinks the price too low, but because he will not take the trouble of preparing and publishing a collected edition of his dramas, the last of which was entitled Maximilian Robespierre, a five act tragedy. He has also a variety of unpublished manuscripts, which it is feared will never see the light.

Students and amateurs of music will find their account in taking the Rheinische Musikzeitung (Rhine Musical Gazette), published at Cologne, under the editorial care of Prof. Bisehof. Its criticism is impartial, intelligent, and free from the prejudices of the schools. German musical criticism has no better organ.

The German poet Simrock has just published a new version of the two Eddas, with the mythical narratives of the Skalda, which is spoken of as a valuable contribution to literature.

The Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries held its annual session on the 15th February at the palace of Christianbourg, the King of Denmark presiding. Mr. Rafn read the report of the transactions of the Society during the year, and laid before the meeting a new number of the Annals of the archaeology and history of the North, and the completed volume of the Archaeological Journal, published by the Society. He also announced that the second volume of his own work on Russian Antiquities was in preparation, and that about half of it was already printed. To give an idea of this work, he read from it a biographical notice on Biorucon, of Arngeirr, an Icelander by birth, distinguished alike as a warrior and a poet, and by his exploits in Russia where he served Vladimir the Great. After this, other members of the Society gave interesting accounts of the results of their various labors during the year. The King presented a paper on excavations made under his personal direction in the ruins of the castles of Saborg and Adserbo, in the North of Seland. These castles date from the middle ages; the memoir was accompanied by drawings.

The Historisches Tashcenbuch (Historical Pocket-Book), edited by the learned Prussian Raumer is a publication eminently worthy of notice. The number for the year 1851 opens with biographical sketches of three women, Ines de Castro and Maria and Lenora Telley, who played important parts in Spanish and Portuguese history in the XIVth Century. They are followed by a concise history of the German marine by Bartholdy, twelve letters by John Voigt on the manners and social life of the princes at the German Diets, a picture from the XVIth Century, the sequel of a memoir by Guhrauer on Elizabeth, Abbess of Herford, a friend of William Penn, and a correspondent of Malebranche, Leibnitz and Descartes, &c., &c. &c.

An interesting account of a most eventful period and country is the Bilder aus Oestreich, just published at Leipzic, by a German traveller. The traveller is understood to be one of the editors of the Grenzboten, and the period he describes comprises the revolutionary years 1848-9. His account of Vienna in the memorable October days of 1848, is graphic, and even thrilling.

Cotta, of Stuttgart, has just published a new collection of poems by Franz Dingelstedt, under the title of "Night and Morning." The themes are drawn from the revolution, its hopes and its disappointments.

Frederic Louis Jahn, the celebrated German professor, who invented the modern system of gymnastics, is writing his personal memoirs. He is about seventy years of age, and his long life has been full of significant incidents.[Pg 168]

To those who seek a good acquaintance with the current belles-lettres literature of Germany, we can cordially recommend the Deutsches Museum, published semi-monthly at Leipsic, under the editorial care of Professor Robert Prutz and Wilhelm Wolffson, and sold in this city by Westermann, 290 Broadway. Each number contains eighty-five close pages, filled by some of the leading writers of German science, art and politics. In the number now before us, are articles by Gutzkow, Böch, the philologist, Berthold Auerbach, Emanuel Geibel and Julius Mosen. The entire range of politics, philosophy, antiquities, art, poetry, romances and literary criticism is included in the scope of the Museum, except that it is designed not for the learned world, but for the mass of the people, and accordingly aims at general not technical instruction. Among the art notices, we observe a brief criticism on the Gallery of Illustrious Americans, in which the lithography of the pictures is praised as well as the faces themselves. The critic is delighted with the energy, originality and freshness of character expressed in their features.

A valuable contribution to current political history is the Verfassungskampf in Kurhessen (Constitutional Struggle in Electoral Hesse), by Dr. H. Gräfe, which has just made its appearance in Germany. The conflict of the people and parliament and public officers, against the selfish, arbitrary and foolish Elector, is the turning point of recent German politics, and the defeat of the former after their patience and firmness, acting always within the limits of the constitution, had gained a decided victory, and compelled the faithless prince to fly the country,—a defeat accomplished only by the intervention of Austrian and Prussian troops, was the final downfall of every form of political liberty in Germany. Dr. Gräfe has wisely abstained from treating the events of this crisis as a philosophical historian; they are too fresh, and his own share in them was too decided to allow him to undertake that successfully. He accordingly does little more than simply report the transactions in a compendious way, with all the documents necessary to a full understanding of the subject. Whoever wishes for a thorough apprehension of the German tragi-comedy, may derive aid from his work.

The resources of philology have just been enriched by the publication at Tubingen of a dictionary of six of the dialects of Eastern Africa, namely, the Kisuaheli, Kinika, Kikamba, Kipokomo, Kihian, and Kigalla. This is accompanied by a translation of Mark's Gospel into the Kikamba dialect, and a short grammar of the Kisuaheli. The author of these works is the Protestant minister Krap, who has been for fifteen years in Ethiopia, and has collected and presented to the University at Tubingen a considerable number of most valuable Ethiopian manuscripts.

A notable and interesting book is Behse's Geschichte des preussischen Hofes und Adels (History of the Prussian Court and Nobility) of which the two first volumes have just been published at Hamburg by Hoffman & Campe. The whole work will contain from thirty to forty small volumes, and will treat all the states of Germany, only some half dozen volumes being devoted to Prussia. The two now published bring the history down to the reign of Frederic William II. They abound in most curious historic details. For instance, the acquisition of the title of King of Prussia by the Elector of Brandenburgh, Frederic III., is narrated at length. It seems that this prince, who was deformed in body, but as politic as he was ambitious in spirit, after many fruitless efforts obtained from the Emperor at Vienna the grant of the royal dignity, by a bribe of two hundred thousand thalers, paid to the Jesuit Father Wolff, as a compensation for the influence of the Society, whose members were flattered that the most powerful of the Protestant princes of Germany should solicit their assistance. The whole cost of the grant was six millions of thalers, an enormous sum for these times. The Papal Court refused to recognize the new king, and did not until Frederic the Great.

We believe a general Biographical Dictionary of Illustrious Women, now in course of publication in Berlin, is to be reproduced here, with suitable additions. We need, while discussions of the sphere and capacities of women are so common among us, a work of real learning and authority, in which the part which the sex has borne and is capable of bearing in the business of civilizing, shall be carefully and honestly exhibited. There are fifteen or twenty volumes of short biographies of women now in print in this country, with prospects of others—all worthless except this extensive German work, which is considerably advanced, and for its literary merit as well as for the interest of its materials, will command an unusual degree of attention.

Countess Ida Hahn Hahn is writing a work to be called My Way from Darkness to Light, from Error to Truth. She has became a Catholic, and this book is intended to tell why. A cheap edition of her works is publishing at Berlin. We presume they are no longer in her control, but belong to her publishers, as she could scarcely consent to reprint some of them.

A new work bearing as its title the single word Italia, is about to be published at Frankfort on the Main. It is a complete artistic, historic and poetic manual for travellers in that lovely peninsula.

The Cologne Musical Society lately offered a prize for the best symphony. Eighty-three have been offered, of which one only seems to be a pure plagiarism.[Pg 169]

A book just published in Germany under the title of Berlin und die Berliner contains some exceedingly interesting details concerning the great naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, from which the International translates the following: "When, in the years 1834-5, we young students thronged into lecture room No. VIII., at eight o'clock on winter mornings, to hear Böckh on Greek literature and antiquities, we used to see in the crowd of students in the dark corridor a small, white-haired, old, and happy-looking man, dressed in a long brown coat. This man was the studiosus philologiæ, Alexander von Humboldt, who came, as he said, to go through again what he had neglected in his youth. When we met him in the lecture-room we respectfully made way for him; for though we had no respect for any body, especially professors, Humboldt was an exception, for he knew 'a hellish deal.' To his own honor, the German student still respects this quality. During the lecture Humboldt sat on the fourth or fifth bench near the window, where he drew a piece of paper from a portfolio in his pocket, and took notes. In going home he liked to accompany Böckh, so as in conversation to build some logical bridge or other from the old world to the new, after his ingenious fashion. There was then in the class a man who has since distinguished himself in political literature, but whom we had nicknamed 'Mosherosh,' that is Calves'-head, on account of his stupid appearance. As Mosherosh generally came in late, it was the fashion to receive him with a magnificent round of stamping. One day, Humboldt came too late, and just at the usual time of Mosherosh, and without looking up we gave the regular round, while Humboldt, blushing and embarrassed, made his way to his place. In a moment the mistake was seen, and a good-natured laugh succeeded. Humboldt also attended the evening lectures of Ritter on universal geography, and let the weather be as bad as it might, the gray-haired man never failed. If for a rarity he chanced not to come, we said among ourselves in students' jargon, 'Alexander cuts the college to-day, because he's gone to King's to tea.' Once, on occasion of discussing an important problem of physical geography, Ritter quoted him, and every body looked up at him. Humboldt bowed to us, with his usual good nature, which put the youngsters into the happiest humor. We felt ourselves elevated by the presence of this great thinker and most laborious student. We seemed to be joined with him in the pursuit of great scientific ends."

The rewards of Authors, we suspect, are greatest in France. In Germany, England and the United States they are about the same. Cooper, Irving and Prescott, in this country, have each received for copyrights more than one hundred thousand dollars. In England, Dickens has probably received more than any other living author—and in France Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Dumas, Scribe, Thiers, and many others, have obtained large fortunes by writing. In Germany Dieffenbach received for his book on Operative Surgery some $3,500; and Perthes of Hamburg, paid to Neander on a single work, more than $20,000, exclusive of the interest his heirs still have in it. Poets like Uhland, Freiligrath, Geibel, have also received as much as $6,000 or $12,000 on the sales of a single volume. Long ago in Boston, Robert Treat Paine received $1,500 for a song. Of our living poets, Longfellow has been most liberally paid.

George Stephens, the learned translator of the Frithiof's Saga of Bishop Tegner, in a letter to The International states that he is now printing at Copenhagen three Anglo-Saxon poems of the eleventh century, namely: The Old Testament Story, On the Sixth Day's Work, and The New Testament Story, by Aelfric, Archbishop of York, now just translated into the metre and alliteration of the original. The three poems will make a quarto volume of about thirty sheets, and copies may be ordered (price three dollars), through the Hon. H. W. Ellsworth, late United States Charge d'Affaires in Sweden, at New-York, or Dr. S. H. Smith, of Cincinnati. Of the ability and fidelity with which the work will be executed, the readers of the Frithiof's Saga need no other assurance.

"Etherization," after all, is not a modern discovery, and Wells, Jackson, and Morton, are alike undeserving of the praise they have received on account of it. The Paris Siècle states that a manuscript, written by Papin, known, for his experiments connected with the motive power of steam, has been discovered near Marburg in Electoral Hesse; that the work bears the name of Traité des Opérations sans Douleur, and that in it are examined the different means that might be employed to deaden, or altogether nullify, sensibility when surgical operations are being performed on the human body, Papin composed this work in 1681, but his contemporaries treated it with ridicule, and he abandoned the medical profession.

A new five-act play, tragic of course, has just appeared at Berlin, founded on the history of Philip Augustus of France. It is by a lady of the aristocratic circles of the Prussian capital, who now makes her debut in literature. It is praised as excellent by those who are not in the habit of being satisfied with the writings of ladies. A collection of poems from the same pen is shortly to appear.

M. Bianchi's Turkish and French Dictionary, in two large octavos, has reached a second edition at Paris. It is all that could be desired for the use of diplomatic and consular agents, traders, navigators, and other travellers in the Levant, but not designed for critics in the language or its literature.[Pg 170]

The students of geography and foreign modes of life, owe a debt to the French General Daumas, for his three works on north-western Africa. The first entitled, Le Sahara Algerien, is an exact and thorough and scientific account of the desert in Algiers, given, however, with a flow of manly, soldatesque imagination, which imparts life and charm to the narrative, and even adorned with frequent quotations from the Arab poets, who have sung the various localities he describes. The second of these works is called Le Grand Desert: in form it is a series of romances, the author having chosen that as the best manner of conveying to the reader a distinct impression. The hero is a dweller in the interior, a member of the tribe of Chambas, who came to Algiers, as he says, because he had predestined him to make that journey. The general interrogates him, and the Arab recounts his adventures. As he had thrice traversed the desert to the negro country beyond, and had seen beside all the usual events in the life of that savage region, the author violates no probability in putting into his mouth the most strange and characteristic stories. The whole are told with a fictitious reproduction of the teser and somewhat monotonous, yet figurative style, proper to all savages. La Grande Kabylie recounts the personal experiences of the author in that yet unconquered country of the Arabs, whither he went with Marshal Bugeaud in his last expedition. Kabylia he describes as a picturesque and productive region. There are deep, sheltered valleys, where along the shores of winding streams, nature has planted hedges of perpetual flowers, while the mountains on each side stand yellow with the ripe and ripening grain. The people are braver and more energetic, their habitations more substantial, and their fields more valuable than those in other parts of Algeria. Gen. Daumas would have France subjugate this country and add it to her African dominions.

M. de Conches, who is well known for his illustrations of early French literature, is an enthusiastic admirer of La Fontaine: and he has spent a vast sum in having printed one copy only, and for himself alone, of an edition of his works, illustrated by the first artists of the day, accompanied by notes and prefaces of the most eminent writers, and forming a very miracle of expensive and recherché typography and binding. Dibdin had never so good a subject for his Bibliomania.

Jules Sandeau, one of the most spirituel and elegant of French romance writers, announced a new novel, Catherine, to appear on the 15th of April.

Another book on the Fall of Louis Philippe has been published at Paris by M. Francois de Groiseillez. It is in the Orleanist interest, and is praised by the Journal des Débats.

The most profligate woman of whom we have any account in Roman history was the empress Massalina, and nothing is more natural than that she should be selected for a heroin by a Frenchman. In a new five act play of which the Parisian journals give us elaborate criticisms, she is represented as a very virtuous wife, by the ingenious contrivance of giving a certain courtezan such a striking personal resemblance to her that it was impossible to distinguish between the two, and making the courtezan commit all the atrocities of the real Massalina. The play is not without literary merit. It is called Valeria—the heroine's other name being considered too strong to figure on a play-bill. Rachel plays the two characters of Massalina and the courtezan—of course with the most perfect success.

A new Review has been established in Paris under the title of La Politique Nouvelle. It comes out as the rival of the Revue des Deux Mondes, and as the champion of the new republican régime (as opposed to the conservative tendencies of the older established Review), offers battle with a promising array of names of future contributors. The department of English criticism is confided to M. Léon de Wailly, author of Stella and Vanessa and the translator of Burns; whose name promises a knowledge and intelligent appreciation of English literature. The first two numbers contain contributions from the brilliant and caustic pen of Eugene Pelletan, and a serial from Madame Charles Reybaud, author of the Cadet de Calubrieres, Helene, &c.

Victor Hugo, since the appearance of the last volume of Le Rhine, four or five years ago, has not printed a new book. The proprietor of his copyrights, who had brought out two splendid editions of his complete works, one in twenty-five volumes, and another, illustrated by the best artists of France, in twelve, made a contract with him by which he has been prevented from any original publications. The term is now nearly expired, and it is announced that he will at once issue three volumes of poetry, and twelve of romances. He is now engaged in finishing a novel entitled Misery, which is spoken of by those who have seen portions of it as a magnificent work.

M. de St. Beuve, since October, 1849, the literary critic of Le Constitutionnel, a writer who has pushed himself up in the world far ahead of his merits, has published at Paris a volume, Causeries du Lundi (Monday Gossipings), which is no great things. These gossipings are taken from the columns of that journal, where they are regularly published on Mondays, and where we have occasionally had the benefit of seeing them. If they were not written by a member of the French Academy, and an eminent litterateur, we should say they were rather stupid, as far as ideas go, and not very elegant in respect of style.[Pg 171]

We had recently the Cooks of Paris, in a handsome volume, with portraits; The Journals and Editors of Paris, in another volume, and now one Paul Lacroix, sometimes called bibliophile Jacob, has announced a History, Political, Civil, Religious, Military, Legislative, Judicial, Moral, Literary, and Anecdotic, of the Shoe and the Bootmakers of France. He treats of the ancient corporations, their discipline, regulations, and of the fraternities, with their obligations and devices, sketching the whole history of La Chaussure. Shoemakers have been well represented among the famous men of all nations, and the craft may be proud of Hans Sachs, Jacob Boehme, Gifford, Bloomfield, Drew, Holcraft, Lackington, Sherman, William Carey, George Fox, and a hundred others, besides the heroes of Monsieur Lacroix.

Bibliophile Jacob Lacroix, we see by the Paris papers, has also discovered a comedie-ballet by Molière, written in 1654, and never included in any edition of his works. It is entitled Le Ballet des incompatibies, and appears to have been written by order of the Prince de Conti, and acted before him by Molière himself and other persons of the Prince's circle. That it remained so long unknown is explained by the circumstance of a few copies only having been printed for the favored spectators. The plot is described as ingenious, and the verses not unworthy of the author. It is known that when the Prince de Conti presided over the states of Languedoc in 1654, he invited thither Molière and his company. He professed so much admiration for the actor that he offered him the confidential situation of secretary, which was declined; but it seems natural enough that he should have shown his gratitude by composing one of those entertainments which cost him so little trouble. This Prince de Conti was at one time so passionately fond of theatricals that he made it his occupation to seek out subjects for new plays, but at a later period he wrote a treatise in which theatres were severely condemned on religious grounds, and Molière himself was personally and violently attacked.

Among the new biographical works announced in Paris, is one on the Life, Virtues and Labors of the late Right Rev. Dr. Flaget, Roman Catholic Bishop of Bardstown and Louisville, Kentucky. The author is a clergyman, who accompanied the late Bishop in one of his last missions to Europe. Bishop Flaget died at the age of eighty-seven.

M. Xavier Marmier, whose visit to the United States we noticed some months ago, has published his Letters on Canada, the United States, Cuba, and Rio La Plata, in two volumes—constituting one of the most agreeable works ever published in Paris upon this country. We shall soon, we believe, have occasion to review a translation of the Letters, by a New-Yorker.

Guizot and Thiers—the most eminent living statesmen of France, as well as her greatest living historians—were for a long time connected with the Paris journals, and each made his first appearance as a writer in criticisms on the Fine Arts. For several years the former published series of articles on the exhibitions of the Louvre, which were remarkable both for artistic knowledge and literary verve. The latter also published in 1810 a pamphlet on the exhibition in the Louvre, which excited great sensation—more, however, from its having a political tendency than for its critical importance.

Mr. Mignet, whose condensed History of the French Revolution is best known to American readers in the cheap reprint of Bohn's Library, and which in Paris has passed through numberless editions—will soon have completed his History of Mary Stuart, which is destined, probably, to supersede every other in the French language. Mignet is perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Moral Sciences, and was for many years head of the department of Archives in the Foreign Office. As a man of letters and a sedulous inquirer, no French author enjoys higher reputation.

Lamartine has just published in Paris The History of the Restoration, from 1814 to 1830, in eight volumes. The work has been composed hastily, and probably by several hands, for money. The poet has also published The Stone Cutter of Saint-Pont, to which we have before referred—a new book of sentimental memoirs: they pall after two administrations.

The Histoire des Races Maudites et les Classes Réprouvés, by Francisque Michel and Edouard Fournier, publishing at Paris, with illustrations, has advanced to the twentieth number. The whole is to contain a hundred numbers, forming three volumes.

M. Michelet, the well-known professor of history in the College de France, has incurred a vote of censure from his associates on account of his lectures to the students, which, we infer from notices of them, are quite too republican and socialistic to be approved by the directors of affairs.

A new work, by M. Theophile Lavallée, entitled L'Histoire de Paris et ses Monumens from ancient times to 1850, has just been published at Paris, with illustrations by M. Champin. It is warmly commended by the Débats.

Mullie, of the University of France, has published in two large octavos, a Biographical Dictionary of the Military Celebrities of France, from 1789 to 1850.

A second edition of the new Life of the great Chancellor D'Auguesseau, by M. Bouille, has been published in Paris. The book continues to be praised.[Pg 172]

A Romance and Tales, said to have been written by Napoleon Bonaparte, when he was a youth, are announced for publication in the Paris Siècle. Though the Siècle is a very respectable journal, and it engages that these compositions are perfectly authentic, and shall be accompanied by proofs of their genuineness, we do not believe a word of the pretence of their authorship. It is a fact, however, not unworthy of note, in a psychological point of view, that the earliest development of Napoleon's ambition and powers, before a fit field of action had been opened to them, was in a literary form. At the age of fifteen, when at the royal school at Paris, he voluntarily prepared a memoir upon the luxury and expense attending education at that place, in which he urged the propriety of the students adopting hardy habits and a simple fare, and themselves to such toils and exposure as they would encounter in war. In 1787, at the age of eighteen, at Valence, he gained, anonymously, a prize proposed to the Academy of Lyons by the Abbé Raynal, on the question, "What are the principles and institutions best adapted to advance mankind in happiness?" In this essay he defined happiness as consisting in the "perfect enjoyment of life according to the laws of our physical and moral organization:" and the forcible views, well adapted to the temper of the times, and the vivid style of writing, attracted much attention. When he was emperor, he was one day conversing with Talleyrand about this essay, and the latter, a few days after, took occasion to present it to him, having procured it from the archives of the academy at Lyons. The emperor took it, and after reading a few pages, threw it into the fire, saying, "One can never observe every thing." Talleyrand had not taken the precaution to transcribe it; but it has been said that Louis Bonaparte had had it copied, and that it is now in print. About the same time he began a history of Corsica, which he dedicated to the Abbé Raynal, by whom he had been noticed and caressed. He corresponded with Paoli in relation to it, and was in treaty with M. Joly, a bookseller of Dole, for its publication. Raynal, who read the manuscript, advised its completion; but some change of purpose prevented its being finished, and it is now lost. During his residence at Auxonne, in 1790, Napoleon wrote and printed a letter to Buttafoco, the Corsican deputy for the nobles in the National Assembly. It is a brilliant and powerful piece of argument and invective, strongly on the revolutionary side. It produced a marked impression, and was adopted and reprinted by the patriotic society at Ajaccio. While at Marseilles, in 1793, Napoleon wrote and published a political dialogue, called "The Supper of Beaucaire"—a judicious, sensible, and able essay, intended to allay the agitation then existing in that city. A copy of it was brought to him in later days, but seeing no advantage in reviving, under the circumstances of a different time, a production written for a temporary and local excitement, he ordered its suppression.

The Life of Calvin, by Paul Henry, has been translated from the German by the Rev. Dr. Henry Stebbing, of London, and we have the first of the two octavos of which it consists, from the press of Robert Carter & Brothers. So much inexcusable ignorance, so much perverse misrepresentation, so much insolent lying, may be found scattered through modern literature, respecting the great Genevan, that Dr. Henry deserves well the thanks of the christian world for exhibiting the chief facts of his history, so plainly that every partisan knave who would repeat the old slanders, shall be silent hereafter for very shame. John Calvin was unquestionably subject to the infirmities of our human nature; so was John Milton; but the inherent and indefectable greatness of these two men was such, that they dwell apart like stars, in glory scarcely approachable by mortal virtue or intelligence. John Calvin and John Milton were in an extraordinary degree the authors of modern institutions of liberty, and it would be difficult to decide which has most merit of this praise. The late Albert Gallatin was wont to say that when we celebrated our condition on the fourth of July, we should first drink to the memory of John Calvin, and then to the immediate authors of the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Gallatin did not hold to all the dogmas of Calvin, but he could not speak of the creatures—like Dyer, for example—who employ their pennyworth of wit to prejudice the vulgar against him, without some signs of scorn. We can never forget his merciless characterization of a malicious feeble-mind, who in a book entitled A Monograph of Moral Sense, declared that Calvin never had enough humanity in his nature to select even one verse by the Evangelists for pulpit illustration,—though the Reformer really preached some folio volumes of commentaries upon the Gospels, preached from them as much as he did from any other portion of the Bible. This person—his name was Smith—was not more reckless of truth than it has been the fashion for anti-Calvinists to be, when writing of that great man and his doctrines, which they seem to have thought could be put down by petty libels.

Calvin is now being born into a new life, as it were; the critics and printers of each particular language are as busy with him as the English have been with Shakspeare. His amazing wit, and genius, and learning, are found as attractive and powerful now as they were three hundred years ago. And this life of him by Henry, embodying whatever of contemporary records is most needful for the illustration of his writings, will be likely to have a large sale with every class of historical students, as they discover that the popular and partisan notions of him are untrue. Certainly no one should attempt to form an opinion of Calvin without thoroughly acquainting himself with Henry.[Pg 173]

In Paris, M. Miller, librarian to the Assembly, has made an important discovery among some old Greek MSS. of a lost work by Origen. The Journal des Débats describes the original work as being in ten books; the first of which is already known to the world under the title of Philosophumena. The last seven books have just been printed at the university press in Oxford, under the editorial direction of M. Miller, who went to England for that purpose. They make an octavo volume of about three hundred and fifty pages. The Débats says the work is "a refutation of heresies, in which the author endeavors to prove that the heresiarchs have all taken their doctrines from the ancient philosophers:"—a very curious task for Origen to perform, since he was himself chiefly remarkable for the mixture of Zeno, Plato, and Aristotle, which he compounded with his Christianity. But apart from its controversial interest, the recovered manuscript will throw new light on the opinions and practices of the Neo-Platonists, and on the manners and customs of ancient times. Discoveries like this point out the necessity for a larger and more combined action of learned societies in the search for ancient manuscripts. Origen's Stromata might even yet be completed: and it is not to be supposed that all the existing fragments of his Hexapla were collected by Montfaucon.

From Constantinople we learn that very important discoveries of ancient Greek MSS. have been made, in a cave, near the foot of Mount Athos, bringing to light a vast quantity of celebrated works quoted by various ancient writers, and hitherto deemed entirely lost. They furnish, according to the accounts in the journals, an extensive list of proper names calculated to throw great light upon many obscure periods of history. Among these volumes, it is said, some are calculated to give a complete interpretation of hieroglyphic writing—the discoverer having already successfully applied them to the interpretation of the inscriptions engraved on the obelisk of the Hippodrome at Constantinople. This may be quite true, but such statements are to be received with some suspicion.

A literal prose translation of Homer, by Mr. T. A. Buckley, has just appeared in London. No prose version will cause any just notion of the spirit of Homer. Of the half dozen metrical translations published recently, we think that of our countryman Munford the best. Henry W. Herbert has given us parts of the Iliad in admirable style. No one, however, has yet equalled old Chapman—certainly not Pope nor Cowper. The most successful translation into a modern language is unquestionably the German one by Voss. Mure and Grote have written the ablest dissertations in English upon the Homeric controversy, but they are not poets, and could not if they would translate the great bard.

R. P. Gillies, a contemporary of the great authors of the last age, has published in three volumes Memoirs of a Literary Veteran. More than half a century spent in the society of the lions of literature, could hardly fail to furnish a store of amusing anecdotes, and a sprinkling of interesting information. Mr. Gillies has also this advantage over many collectors of similar reminiscences, that he was not only an author among authors, but that his social position in early life gave him access to the best circles. Scott, Wordsworth, Campbell, the Ettrick Shepherd, Rogers, Galt, Maginn, Haydon, and many more names of interest, figure frequently in his pages. Upon the whole, however, his work is tedious, and quite too much occupied with matters that can be entertaining only to his most intimate associates. Gillies was one of the early contributors to "Blackwood," and figured as "Kemperhausen" in the Noctes Ambrosianæ. He was also the originator and first editor of the Foreign Quarterly Review, and was one of the first to make German literature familiar in England.

It appears that only the Harpers' edition of Lord Holland's Reminiscences is complete. The London copies are full of asterisks, marking the places of cancelled passages. The cancellings, it was suggested, were occasioned by the interposition of Lord John Russel. A correspondent of The Times, however, (understood to be Mr. Panizzi of the British Museum,) came out with a denial, saying "his lordship never saw a word of the Reminiscences till after they were published, and that no responsibility whatever could attach to him. I speak thus," he adds, "of my own knowledge, and beg to inclose my name as a voucher for the truth of this statement." The Athenæum thinks that if Mr. Panizzi had said "printed" instead of "published," his voucher would have been less rashly ventured, as "Lord John did see the work before it was actually published, but not before it had been actually printed; and here, if we be not misinformed, arises a somewhat amusing contretemps, which is likely to render the cancels ineffectual. Lord John, in fact, had not the opportunity of interfering until the work had been so far published to the world that an 'uncancelled' copy, with all the passages since sought to be suppressed, had been dispatched to America beyond recall. The next American mail will, doubtless, supply us with the whole of the suppressed passages."

The meeting of the British Association, at Ipswich, is to commence on Wednesday, July the 2d, and extend over seven or eight days. The secretaries have received the names of several hundred intending visitors, among whom are Lucien Buonaparte, Sir R. Murchison, Sir H. de la Beche, Sir W. Jardine, Sir Charles Lyell, Sir David Brewster; Professors Daubeny, Silliman (of America), Owen, Ansted, and the celebrated naturalist, M. Lorrillier, a relative of the late Baron Cuvier.[Pg 174]

Of the new book on Man's Nature and Development, by Miss Martineau and Mr. Atkinson, the Westminster Review for April says:

"Strange and wonderful is the power of self-delusion! Here we have two clever well-informed people, persuading themselves that they experience extraordinary raptures mingled with the most exquisite philosophic calm, from believing that unconscious matter is the cause of conscious thought, that the truest human affection is nothing worthier than the love of a spoonful of nitric acid for a copper half-penny, and that annihilation is the most satisfactory end of human life. From such views both the intellect and the heart of man will recoil with well-founded disgust—his logical powers will perceive the absurdity of the argument, and his taste and affections will lead him to exclaim with Wordsworth:—

"The new lights promised by our authors turn out to be chiefly composed of very old-fashioned rays of darkness, and, after a careful perusal, many will come to the conclusion that the way to be a modern philosopher, is to quote the ancients, praise Bacon, and talk 'bosh.'"

New editions of the works of Fielding and Smollett, profusely illustrated by Cruikshank and Kenny Meadows, will soon be published by Stringer & Townsend. These great classics will never cease to be read with the keenest relish by all the English race. The London publishers of the present edition of Fielding observe in their advertisement:

"It is altogether unnecessary to enlarge upon the genius of Henry Fielding. There is no man in the brilliant history of English literature, with the single exception of Shakspeare, to whose genius has been paid the homage of a more general attestation. Calumny and misrepresentation—the offspring of envy and malice—these, in his day, he had to endure or to deride, and these, with their authors, have long sunk into oblivion. The greatest of his contemporaries knew and acknowledged his transcendent merit, and since his death, there has not been one man of genius whose opinion of Fielding is recorded, that has not spoken of him with veneration and delight. Dr. Johnson, spite of a personal enmity, could not but concede his extraordinary powers. Lady Mary Wortley Montague reluctantly confessed that 'cousin Fielding' was the greatest original genius of the age; the fastidious Gray was charmed with him; and the more fastidious Gibbon has left his opinion on record, that the illustrious house of Hapsburg, from which Fielding was descended—its name erased, its towers crumbled,—will be forgotten, when the romance of Tom Jones shall flourish in eternal youth. If Coleridge classed him, as one of the true immortals, with Shakspeare, Goëthe could not, nor was willing to contest, that he was so; if Byron could cheer his heart and refresh his mind with his pages, so can, and so does, Wordsworth. In a word, the matchless drawing of his characters, which are not likenesses from life, but copies from Nature—the one being a shallow art, the other a profoundly creative power—his exquisite wit, his abounding humor, his natural and manly pathos—in these no writer of narrative fiction has ever approached him.

"While, therefore, nothing can be less likely than that the fame of Fielding should ever be suffered to die, or that, as long as literature exists it can ever diminish, nothing can be more proper than to attempt to extend his popularity—a consummation inevitably to be effected by producing his works at a price accessible, and in a form attractive, to all classes. The late Rowland Hill once observed, that it was not fitting that the arch-enemy of mankind should have all the best tunes to himself. In a like spirit it may be remarked, that it ought not to be permitted to inferior writers to monopolize all the appliances and means of popularity that art can bestow. Accordingly, the proprietors have secured the hearty and zealous co-operation of Kenny Meadows. It would be invidious, and from the purpose, to institute a comparison between this gentleman and his contemporaries; but it may be asserted that no living artist has shown an equal versatility of genius, which points him out as the man best fitted to trace the many-colored life of Fielding. From the illustration, almost page by page, of Shakspeare, where is the man but would have shrunk? but that work of our artist has secured not merely an English, not only a European reputation, but a world-wide celebrity. The proprietors are assured, that from the hand of Kenny Meadows such an edition of Fielding will proceed as we have not yet seen, and shall not hereafter see."

Of Mr. John Bigelow's work on Jamaica, (published a few weeks ago by Putnam,) the London Examiner of April 5th, remarks:

"It contains the most searching analysis of the present state of Jamaica, and, moreover, the most sagacious prognostications of the future prospects of the island that have ever been published. Mr. Bigelow is an accomplished, acute, and liberal American. As such, an eye-witness and a participator of the greatest and most successful colonial experiment which the world has ever seen, he is, necessarily, a better and more impartial judge of the subject he treats of than any Englishman of equal capacity and acquirement. Mr. Bigelow makes short and easy work of planters, attornies, book-keepers, sophistries, and Stanleys. In doing so, his language is invariably that of a man of education and a gentleman. He might have crushed them with a sledge-hammer, but he effects his purpose as effectually with a pass or two of a sharp and polished broad-sword."

The publication of a translation in the Bohemian language of Lamartine's History of the Girondins, has been recently prohibited at Prague by the Austrian authorities.

Macready, in retiring from the stage, had more honors showered upon him than ever before sweetened the leave-taking of any hero of the buskin: among them, this dedication of George Sand's latest publication, Le Château des Désertes, which is now appearing in La Revue des Deux Mondes:

"To W. C. Macready:—This little work, attempting to set forth certain ideas on Dramatic Art, I place under the protection of a great name, and of an honorable friendship.

George Sand."

The first volume of The Stones of Venice, by Mr. Ruskin, has been republished by Mr. Wiley, and we trust it will have a very large sale in this country, which was never in greater need of instructions upon any subject than it is now upon that of architecture. In all our cities there is remarkable activity in building; the surplus wealth of the American people is largely applied for the increase of the magnificence of town and country residences—for the most part so ignorantly applied, that the Genius of Architecture might almost be frightened from our shores by the spectacles reared here to vex and astonish the next ages. To bring about a reform, to lead the way for rationalism, in the noblest of the practical arts, Mr. Ruskin has approved himself worthy by his previous works. The Stones of Venice will increase the fame won by his "Modern Painters." The Literary Gazette says:

"It is a book for which the time is ripe, and it cannot fail to produce the most beneficial results, directly and indirectly, on our national architecture. The low condition into which that has fallen has been long felt. Mr. Ruskin has undertaken to lead us back to the first principles of the art, and, in doing so, to enable every reader who will bestow the necessary attention to his exposition, to discover for himself the causes of this decline, and to master the principles, by attention to which, the significance and dignity of the art may be restored. The subject is one of the widest interest; but it has been so hedged about with technical difficulties as to debar from its study all who had not more leisure, more perseverance, and more money, than fall to the lot of the majority of even cultivated minds. At once popular and profound, this book will be gratefully hailed by a circle of readers even larger than Mr. Ruskin has found for his previous works. He has so written as to catch the ear of all kinds of persons: 'Every man,' he says truly, 'has at some time of his life personal interest in architecture. He has influence on the design of some public building; or he has to buy, or build, or alter his own house. It signifies less, whether the knowledge of other arts be general or not; men may live without buying pictures or statues; but in architecture all must in some way commit themselves; they must do mischief, and waste their money, if they do not know how to turn it to account. Churches, and shops, and warehouses, and cottages, and small row, and place, and terrace houses, must be built and lived in, however joyless and inconvenient. And it is assuredly intended that all of us should have knowledge, and act upon our knowledge, in matters in which we are daily concerned, and not be left to the caprice of architects, or mercy of contractors."

"Those who live in cities are peculiarly dependent for enjoyment upon the beauty of its architectural features. Shut out from mountain, river, lake, forest, cliff, and hedgerow, they must either find in streets and squares food for pleasant contemplation, or be drawn into indifference by meaningless, ill-proportioned, or unsightly forms. 'We are forced,' says Mr. Ruskin, 'for the sake of accumulating our power and knowledge, to live in cities; but such advantage as we have in association with each other, is in great part counterbalanced by our loss of fellowship with nature. We cannot all have our gardens now, nor our pleasant fields to meditate in at eventide. Then the function of our architecture is, as far as may be, to replace these; to tell us about nature; to possess us with memories of her quietness; to be solemn and full of tenderness like her, and rich in portraitures of her; full of delicate imagery of the flowers we can no more gather, and of the living creatures now far away from us in their own solitude. If ever you felt or found this in a London street; if ever it furnished you with one serious thought, or any ray of true and gentle pleasure; if there is in your heart a true delight in its green railings, and dark casements, and wasteful finery of shops, and feeble coxcombry of club-houses, it is well; promote the building of more like them. But if they never taught you any thing, and never made you happier as you passed beneath them, do not think they have any mysterious goodness of occult sublimity. Have done with the wretched affectation, the futile barbarism, of pretending to enjoy; for, as surely as you know that the meadow grass, meshed with fairy rings, is better than the wood pavement cut into hexagons; and as surely as you know the fresh winds and sunshine of the upland are better than the choke-damp of the vault, or the gaslight of the ball-room, you may know that the good architecture which has life, and truth, and joy in it, is better than the bad architecture, which has death, dishonesty, and vexation of heart in it from the beginning to the end of time.

"To show what this good architecture is, how it is produced, and to what end, is the object of the present volume. It is, consequently, purely elementary, and introductory merely to the illustration, to be furnished in the next volume from the architectural riches of Venice, of the principles, to the development of which it is devoted. Beginning from the beginning, Mr. Ruskin carries his reader through the whole details of construction with an admirable clearness of exposition, and by a process which leaves him at the close in a position to apply the principles which he has learned by the way, and to form an intelligent and independent judgment upon any form of architectural structure. The argument of the book hangs too closely together to be indicated by extracts, or by an analysis within the limits to which we are confined."

We perceive that the work of which the first volume is here noticed, is to be followed immediately by Examples of the Architecture of Venice, selected and drawn to measurement from the edifices, by Mr. Ruskin: to be completed in twelve parts, of folio imperial size, price one guinea each. These will not be reproduced in this country, and as the author probably has little advantage from the American editions of his works, we trust that for his benefit as well as for the interests of art, the Examples will be largely imported.

The new play written by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, as his contribution towards the fund raising for the new Literary Institute, is in the hands of the literary and artistic amateurs by whom it is to be enacted, and rehearsals are in progress. The first performance will take place probably in June.[Pg 176]

It was a custom when the world was younger than it is now, for disappointed lovers, and outlaws, and portionless youths too proud to labor and afraid to steal, to go into the wars; nobility, that would not suffer them to become journeymen mechanics, led them to hire out as journeymen butchers. But at length the field of military adventure is almost every where closed. There is no region, ever so remote, where a spirited and adventurous youth could hope ever to learn the art martial. A few skirmishes on the Parana and the Plata, on the Fish River, or the Keiskamma, form all the fighting that is going on upon the globe; and that fighting offers no premium to the adventurer. There is no native prince of great wealth and numerous followers, no mogul, or sultan, or sikh, with whom the turbulent European might make a good bargain for his courage. The last field for such enterprise was the country of the Mahrattas, where French and English mercenaries—with a sprinkling of Americans—created a colony which enabled the ignorant, bigoted and jealous savages to keep in check the best European armies. A Frenchman named Person was a pioneer in the business. He was succeeded by the Savoyard, De Boigne, whose statue now adorns the principal square of Chamberry. James Skinner, whose Memoirs have just been published in London by the novelist and traveler Mr. Bailie Fraser, began a similar career under De Boigne. Some idea may be formed of the Mahratta army, when the Peishwa at times brought 100,000 horse into the field. A trusted officer, as Skinner afterwards became, might thus command a division of twenty, thirty, or forty thousand men, equal in fact to the largest European armies in the last century. When men played with such tools as these, it may be easily imagined how they themselves rose and fell; how empires crumbled, or were reared anew. When Wellesley and Loke overthrew the Mahrattas, Skinner entered the British service, and it appears from the book before us that he died in 1836 a knight of the Bath.

"Hitherto," says M. de Sainte Beuve, "the real learning of women has been found to be pretty much the property of their lovers;" and he ridicules the notion that even Mrs. Somerville has any scholarship that would win the least distinction for a man. It may be so. We see, however, that a Miss Fanny Corbaux has lately communicated to the Syro-Egyptian Society in London a very long and ambitious paper On the Raphaïm and their connexion with Egyptian History, in which she quotes Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, &c., with astonishing liberality.

Carlyle's translation of the Apprenticeship and Travels of Wilhelm Meister, has been issued in a very handsome edition, by Ticknor, Reed & Fields, of Boston.

The Late Mr. John Glanville Taylor, an Englishman, left in MS. a work upon The United States and Cuba, which has just been published by Bentley, and is announced for republication by Mr. Hart of Philadelphia. Mr. Taylor was born in 1810, and when about twenty-one years of age he left Liverpool for the United States, on a mining speculation. After travelling a few months in this country, he was induced to go to Cuba to examine a gold vein of which he thought something might be made. The place in Cuba which was to be the scene of his operations, was the neighborhood of Gibara, on the north-eastern side of the island, which he reached by sailing from New-York to St. Jago de Cuba, and travelling across the island forty-five leagues. The gold vein turned out a wretched failure; and, after having been put to some disagreeable shifts to maintain himself, Mr. Taylor resolved to settle as a planter in Holguin—the district to which Gibara forms the port of entry. Returning to the United States, he made the necessary arrangements; and in the summer of 1843, was established on his hacienda, in partnership with an American who had been long resident in that part of the island. In this and the following year, however, the east of Cuba was visited by an unprecedented drought; causing famine which, though it destroyed many lives and ruined thousands of proprietors, attracted no more attention, he says, in England, than was implied by "a paragraph of three lines in an English newspaper." The west of Cuba was at the same time devastated by a tremendous hurricane, accompanied by floods; and, all his Cuban prospects being thus blasted, the author was glad to return to New-York in September, 1845, whence, after a short stay, he returned to England. He did not long, however, remain in his native country, but left it for Ceylon, where he died suddenly in January, of the present year. His United States and Cuba: Eight Years of Change and Travel, was left in MS., and within a few weeks has been printed. It is a work of much less value than Mr. Kimball's Cuba and the Cubans, published in New-York last year. Of that very careful and judicious performance Mr. Taylor appears to have made considerable use in the preparation of his own, and his agreement with Mr. Kimball may be inferred from the fact that, though pointedly protesting that he does not advocate the annexation of Cuba to the United States, he holds that "worse things might happen,"—and indeed hints that sooner or later the event is inevitable. Of Cuba and the Cubans, we take this opportunity to state that a new and very much improved edition will soon be issued by Mr. Putnam.

Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley has in the press of Bentley her Travels in the United States. She passed about two years, we believe, in this country. She has written several books, in verse and prose, but we never heard that any body had read one of them.[Pg 177]

The Nile Notes, by Mr. Curtis, have been republished in London by Bentley, and the book is as much approved by English as by American critics. The Daily News says:

"The author is evidently a man of great talent."

"It is brilliant book, full of thought and feeling."

"The author of Nile Notes, we may now add, is richly poetical, humorous, eloquent, and glowing as the sun, whose southern radiance seems to burn upon his page. An affluence of fancy which never fails, a choice of language which chastens splendor of expression by the use of simple idioms, a love for the forms of art whether old or new, and a passionate enjoyment of external nature such as belongs to the more poetic order of minds—are the chief characteristics of this writer."

"The genial and kindly spirit of this book, the humor and vivacity of personal descriptions, redeemed by an exquisite choice of expression from the least taint of the common or the coarse; the occasional melody and music of the diction, cadenced, as it were, by the very grace and tenderness of the thought it clothes, or the images of beauty it evokes; the broad, easy touches, revealing as at a glance the majestic and tranquil features of the Eastern landscape, and the ultimate feeling of all its accessories of form and hue; the varied resources of learning, tradition, poetry, romance, with which it is not encumbered but enriched, as a banquet table with festal crowns and sparkling wines—all these, and many other characteristics, to which our space forbids us to do justice, render these 'Nile Notes' quite distinct from all former books of Eastern travel, and worthy 'to occupy the intellect of the thoughtful and the imagination of the lively.' Never did a wanderer resign his whole being with more entire devotion to the silence and the mystery that brood, like the shadow of the ages, over that dead, dumb land. A veritable lotus-eater is our American Howadji!'"

And a dozen other London journals might be quoted to the same effect. But critics disagree, as well as doctors, and the Boston Puritan Recorder comes down on the Howadji in the following exemplary manner:

"This is a much-vaunted book, by a young American, but one in which we take no pleasure. In the first place, it is written in a most execrable style,—all affectation, and verbal wriggling and twisting for the sake of originality. The veriest sophomore ought to be "rusticated" for such conceited phrases as "beautiful budburstiness of bosom,"—"her twin eyes shone forth liquidly lustrous"—and innumerable expressions in the same namby-pamby dialect. But dellacruscan folly is but a trifle compared with the immoral tendency of the descriptions of the gahzeeyah, or dancing girls of Egypt, and the luscious comments on their polluted ways and manners. We thought the Harpers had done publishing this indecent trash."

D. M. Moir, the "Delta" of Blackwood's Magazine, has just published in Edinburgh, Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the Past Half Century, in six Lectures, delivered at the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution.

The Rev. Satan Montgomery, otherwise called Robert Montgomery, is not dead, as some have supposed, but is still making sermons and verses—probably sermons and verses of equally bad quality; and we see with some alarm that the Rivingtons advertise, as in preparation, a complete edition of his Poetical Works [we never saw any works by him that were poetical] in one octavo volume, similar in size and appearance to the octavo editions of Southey, Wordsworth, &c., &c., and including the whole of the author's poems—Satan, Woman, Hell, and all the rest,—in a revised form, with some original minor pieces, and a general preface. We don't suppose he will take our counsel, yet we will venture it, that he make use of Macaulay's reviewal of his poems, instead of any "general preface" of his own.

Documentary History of New-York.—The forthcoming (third) volume of this State contribution to our historical literature will well sustain the reputation of its predecessors and of its zealous editor. Dr. O'Callaghan is an enthusiast in his zeal for lighting up "the dark ages of our history," as Verplanck called the Dutch period; and he has done as much as any man living to rescue the fast perishing memorials of the founders of the Empire State. It is fortunate for the State that his industry and patient research are secured for the proper arrangement of the Archives—too long neglected and subject to loss and mutilation. The new volume has come to hand too late for any elaborate notice or review of its contents; but a glance at the list of papers and illustrations alone warrants the opinion we have expressed. We notice particularly the account of Champlain's explorations in Northern New-York, &c., from 1609 to 1615—translated from the edition of 1632. The historical student cannot fail to note the coincidence of discovery and exploration by the Dutch and French; and the credit due to the "Founder of New France;" to which we have alluded in the article on the Jesuit Relations. The translations of the extracts from Wassenaar (1624, etc.), give an interesting cotemporaneous view of the progress of the European discoveries and settlements in America. A chapter on Medals and Coins contains attractive matter, particularly that portion which relates to the "Rosa Americana coins," connected as they are with the "Wood's half-pence," immortalized by Dean Swift. The notes and biographical sketches by the editor, scattered through the volume, add materially to its value—as also the numerous maps and engravings. We have heard hints that some small suggestions of disinterested economists of the public money, or other considerations less creditable, have been brought to bear against the continuation of this publication—but we trust that they will end when they begin. New-York owes it to her own great history to make its material accessible to all.[Pg 178]

Colonel Albert J. Pickett, of Montgomery, has in the press of Walker and James, of Charleston, The History of Alabama, and incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi, from the Earliest Period. It will make two handsome volumes, and from some passages of it which we have read, we believe it will be a work of very unusual attraction. It will embrace an account of the invasion of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, by De Soto, in 1539-41; of the Aborigines of these states, their appearance, manners and customs, games, amusements, wars, and religious ceremonies, their ancient mounds and fortifications, and of the modern Indians, the Creeks, Chickasaws Choctaws, Alabamas, Uchees, Cherokees, and other tribes; the discovery and settlement of Alabama and Mississippi by the French, and their occupation until 1763; the occupation of Alabama and Mississippi by the British for eighteen years; the colonization of Georgia by the English; the occupation of Alabama and Mississippi by the Spaniards for thirty years; and the occupation of these states by the Americans from 1800 until 1820. One whole chapter is taken up with an interesting account of the arrest of Aaron Burr in Alabama in 1807; and the exciting controversies between Georgia, the Federal Government, Spain, and the Creek Indians, are treated at length. The work will be illustrated by really valuable engravings, after original drawings made by a French traveller in 1564.

Mrs. Farnham, author of Prairie-Land, (a very clever book published three or four years ago by the Harpers), and widow of the late Mr. Farnham who wrote a book of travels in Oregon and other parts of the Pacific country, is now living in a sort of paradise, about seventy miles south of San Francisco. In a published letter she gives the following description of her farm:

"It is very heavily timbered and watered with clear living streams running through valleys of the most fertile soil, on which delicious vegetables grow ten months of the year. The region is especially famed for potatoes, which become almost a fruit here. The farm I live on is charmingly situated about a mile from the old Mission, and two from the beach, on which a tremendous surf breaks and thunders day and night. From my house I look over the coast-table and range of mountains, the hills of Monterey, the bay, and a near landscape, exquisitely diversified by plain and wood, hill and valley, and almost every shade that herbage and foliage, in a country without frost, can show. The rainy season is about a month old, and the earth as green as it is at home in June. Another month will pile it with clover, and less than another variegate it with an inconceivable variety of the most exquisite flowers—for this is the land of flowers as well as of gold. Our prairies are quite insignificant in their floral shows, compared to it. The country and climate are faultless—except in the lack of showers through the dry months. Nearly every thing one can desire may be grown upon one's own farm here."

Mr. Charles Gayarre, a gentleman distinguished in the affairs of Louisiana, in which state he has held some important offices, has just published in a handsome octavo, Louisiana, its Colonial History and Romance, (Harper & Brothers.) It appears from the preface, that Mr. Gayarre has had excellent opportunities for the collection of materiel for a really good book of the sort indicated by his title; but this performance is utterly worthless, or worse than worthless, being neither history nor fiction, but such a commingling of the two that no one can tell which is one or which the other. The uncertainty with which it is read will be disagreeable in proportion to the interest that it excites; and, knowing something of the colonial history of Louisiana, we are inclined to think that a book quite as entertaining as this might have been composed of authenticated facts. Indeed the Historical Collections of Louisiana, by Mr. French, (published by Daniels and Smith, Philadelphia,) must be to even the most superficial reader a far more attractive volume.

The Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution, by Benson J. Lossing, (Harper & Brothers,) is a work that cannot well be praised overmuch. There have been an immense number of illustrated and pictorial histories of this country, all or nearly all of which are worthless patchwork; but Mr. Lossing's is a production of equal attractive interest and value. The first volume only has been completed; one more will follow with all convenient haste, ending the work. The letter-press is written from original materials, the drawings of scenery are made from original surveys, the engravings are executed, all by Mr. Lossing himself; and in every department he evinces judgment and integrity. The Field Book will not serve the purposes of a general history, but to the best informed and most sagacious it will be a useful companion in historical reading, while to those who seek only amusement in books, it may be commended, for its pleasant style and careful art, as one of the most entertaining works of the time.

We are glad to perceive that Mr. J. H. Ingraham, author of The Southwest, by a Yankee; Burton, or the Sieges; and a large number of the vilest yellow-covered novels ever printed in this country, has been admitted to the deaconate in the Episcopal church at Natchez, and intends shortly to remove to Aberdeen, in the same state, to found a society in that city.

Mrs. Judson ("Fanny Forrester") left Calcutta in January for the United States, by way of England, and she is now daily expected home, by her old and warmly attached friends here. We see suggested a volume of her poems—some of which have much tenderness and beauty; and hope that measures will be taken to insure such a publication, for her exclusive benefit, immediately.[Pg 179]

Our contemporary, the Philadelphia Lady's Book, is a little out of season in its fashions. The April number of that excellent periodical contains the Parisian Fashions which appeared in The International for February; and for this present month of May, we see in The Lady's Book the altogether too warm and heavily made dresses given in The International for last January—mid-winter. Certainly Philadelphia ought not to be so far behind New-York in these matters. In its literary character the Lady's Book is still sustained by the contributions of its favorite critic Mr. Henry T. Tuckerman, with those of Mr. T. S. Arthur, Miss Adaliza Cutter, and Mrs. Sarah J. Hale.

We regret that the terms in which we lately announced Mr. J. R. Tyson's forthcoming History of the American Colonies were capable of any misapprehension. We know Mr. Tyson quite too well to entertain a doubt of his perfect integrity as a historian; but it has been a subject of frequent observation in the middle and southern states that the New-England writers, who have furnished most of our histories, have exaggerated the influence of the Puritans and depreciated that of the Quakers and Cavaliers: Mr. Tyson himself, we believe, has been of this opinion; and we merely look for an able, fair, and liberal history, from his point of view.

Mr. Valentine is preparing a new volume of his Manual of the Common Council of New-York. The volumes hitherto published have been edited with great care and judgment; they embody an extraordinary amount and variety of interesting and important facts connected with the advancement and condition of the city; and the series is indispensable to any one who would write a history of New-York, or the lives of its leading citizens. The last volume was unusually rich in maps and statistics, and we understand that the next one will be even more interesting and valuable.

Mr. Willis has just published (through Charles Scribner) a new volume under the characteristic title of Hurry-graphs, or Sketches of Scenery, Celebrities and Society, taken from life. It embraces the author's letters to the Home Journal, from Plymouth, Montrose, the Delaware, the Hudson, the Highlands, and other summer resorts, with personal descriptions of Webster, Everett, Emerson, Cooper, Jenny Lind, and many other notabilities. It will be a delightful companion for the watering places this season.

Among the most beautiful books from the American press is Episodes of Insect Life, by Acheta Domestica, just reprinted by J. S. Redfield. The natural history and habits of insects of every class are delineated by a close observer with remarkable minuteness, and in a style of unusual felicity; and the peculiar illustrations of the book are more spirited and highly finished than we have noticed in any publication of a similar character.

The Harpers have published a new edition of the Greek Grammar of Philip Buttman, revised and enlarged by his son, Alexander Buttman, and translated from the eighteenth German edition by Dr. Edward Robinson. It is not to be doubted, we suppose, that this grammar, in the shape in which it is now presented, is altogether the best that exists of the Greek language. We are not ourselves competent to a judgment in the case, but from all we have seen upon the subject by the best scholars, we take this to be the general opinion.

John P. Kennedy has in the press of Putnam a new and carefully revised edition of his Swallow Barn, or a Sojourn in the Old Dominion, one of the most pleasant books illustrative of local manners and rural life that has ever been written. It is more like Irving's Bracebridge Hall than any other work we can think of, and is as felicitous a picture of old Virginia as Jeffrey Crayon has given us of Merrie England. The first edition of Swallow Barn was published twenty years ago; the new one is to be beautifully illustrated in the style of Irving's Sketch Book.

Dr. Francis Lieber, the learned Professor of the South Carolina College, has been elected a member of the National Institute of France. Dr. Lieber is a German, but he has resided in this country many years. Among Americans who have been thus complimented are Mr. Prescott and Mr. Bancroft. The late Henry Wheaton was also a member of the Institute.

The entertaining book, Ship and Shore, by the late Rev. Walter Colton, has just been published by A. S. Barnes & Co., who will as soon as practicable complete the republication of all Mr. Colton's works, under the editorship of the Rev. Henry T. Cheever.

The Domestic Bible, by the Rev. Ingram Cobbin, just published in a very handsome quarto volume in this city by S. Hueston, we think decidedly the best edition of the Scriptures for common use that has ever been printed in the English language. Its chief merit consists in this, that without embracing a syllable of debatable matter in the form of notes, it contains every needful explanation and illustration of the text that can be gathered from ancient art, literature and history, expressed with great distinctness and compactness, together with such well-executed wood engravings as unquestionable knowledge in this age could suggest—omitting altogether the absurd fancy embellishments which in most of the illustrated Bibles are so offensive to the taste, and so worthless as guides to the understanding. The editor we believe is a clergyman of the Episcopal Church in England, but he has had the good sense to avoid, so far as we can see, everything that would vex the sectarian feelings of any one who admits that the Bible itself is true.[Pg 180]

The Life, Speeches, Orations, and Diplomatic Papers of Lewis Cass, are in press at Baltimore, under the editorship of Mr. George H. Hickman. The Speeches, Forensic Arguments, and Diplomatic Papers of Daniel Webster (to be comprised in six large octavo volumes), are in the press of Little & Brown of Boston, under the care of Mr. Edward Everett. The Memoirs and Works of the late John C. Calhoun are soon to be published in Charleston, by Mr. R. K. Craller, and we hear of collections of the Speeches and Public Papers of Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Benton. All these are important works in literature, affairs or history.

Professor Gillespie, of Union College, has just published (Harper & Brothers) a translation of The Philosophy of Mathematics, from the Cours de Philosophie Positive of Auguste Comte. The intellect of Europe in this century has evolved no greater work than the Philosophie Positive, and Professor Gillespie has done a wise thing in rendering into English that part of it which relates to the field of mathematical science.

Professor Lincoln's edition of Horace (recently published by the Appletons) is the subject of much commendatory observation from critical scholars. For purposes of instruction it is likely to have precedence of any other that has been printed in this country. Those having marginal translations may be very convenient for indolent boys, but they are not altogether the most serviceable.

A work of very great ability has appeared in Paris, under the title of De la Certitude, (Upon Certainty), by A. Javary. It makes an octavo of more than five hundred pages, and for originality of ideas and illustrations, and cumulative force of logic, is almost unrivalled. The sceptical speculation of the time is reduced by it to powder, and thrown to the winds.

Mr. McConnell, who gave us last year a brilliant volume under the title of "Talbot and Vernon," has just published, The Glenns, a Family History, by which his good reputation will be much increased. It displays much skill in the handling, and is altogether an advance from his previous performance. (C. Scribner.)

The wife of a shipmaster trading from Boston in the Pacific, has just published a volume entitled Life in Fejee, or Five Years among the Cannibals. It is a very entertaining book, and we are obliged to the cannibals for not eating the author.

Noticing the appointment of Mr. S. G. Goodrich to be consul for the United States at Paris, the London News says: "In these days of testimonials and compliments, we should not be surprised to hear of an address of congratulation to the admired Peter, from the 'children of England.'"

Of recent American Novels, the best that have fallen under our notice (except those of Hawthorne and McConnell, before noticed), are, The Rangers, or the Tory's Daughter, a very interesting tale illustrative of the revolutionary history of Vermont, by D. P. Thompson, author of "The Green Mountain Boys," (B. B. Mussey & Co., Boston); Mount Hope, or Philip, King of the Wampanoags, by C. H. Hollister, (Harper & Brothers); Rebels and Tories, or the Blood of the Mohawk, by Lawrence Labree, (Dewitt and Davenport); and Second Love, a pleasant domestic story, by an anonymous writer, (G. P. Putnam.)

The Hakluyt Society, in London, has commenced its series of publications with Divers Voyages touching the Discovery of America and the Islands adjacent, collected and published by Richard Hakluyt, Prebendary of Bristol, in the year 1582: edited, with notes and an introduction, by John Winter Jones. The society should have many subscribers in this country.

Dr. Mayo has published a new book of tales, not unworthy of the author of "Kaloolah" and "The Berber," under the title of "Romance Dust from the Historic Placers." We shall give it attention hereafter. (Putnam.)

Masaniello is suppressed at Berlin, as Tell had been—not modern imitations of those heroes, but the operas so called, by Rossini and Auber. The Prussian Government, liberal as it was a few months ago in professions, cannot stand the performance of operas!

Mr. Thackeray is to commence in London, about the middle of the present month, a course of lectures embracing biographical reminiscences of some of the comic writers of England during the eighteenth century.

Mr. Alison, the historian, has been chosen Rector of the University of Glasgow, by the casting vote of Col. Mure, the historian of Greek Literature, who occupied the same place before Macaulay.

The Fine Arts.

The engravings of the several Art-Unions of this country for the coming year will be from excellent pictures. The American Art-Union will offer its subscribers Mr. Woodville's Mexican News, engraved by Alfred Jones; the Philadelphia Art-Union, Huntington's Christiana and Her Children, by Andrews; and for the same purpose, Mr. Perkins, of Boston, has allowed the New-England Art-Union to make use of his magnificent picture of Saul and the Witch of Endor, painted by Alston, and generally considered one of the finest historical productions of that eminent artist. Each of the Unions, we believe, will also publish some less important works for distribution or prizes.[Pg 181]

The twenty-sixth exhibition of the National Academy of Design, has commenced under favorable auspices. Upon the whole, the collection of pictures is the best ever made by the society. We have not space for any particular criticism, but must refer to Mr. Durand's admirable landscapes; the Greek Girl and full length portrait of General Scott by Mr. Kellogg; Mount Desert Island by Mr. Church; The Defence of Toleration by Mr. Rothermel; The Edge of the Wood by Mr. Huntington; Mr. Gignoux's Winter Sunset, and other pictures in the same department by Richards, Cropsey, and Kensett; and portraits by Elliott, Osgood, Hicks and Flagg,—are the works which strike us as deserving most praise.

The Bulletin of the American Art-Union for April, describes the opposition to the institution of which it is the organ, as directed by "envy, malice, and uncharitableness," and intimates that it is occasioned by the inability or unwillingness of the committee to purchase the trashy productions of incompetent painters constantly offered to them. We submit to the gentlemen connected with the Art-Union, that they should not suffer the hirelings they may sometimes employ upon the Bulletin, thus to refer to such artists and such men as Durand, Wier, Kellogg, Elliott, and many others, who have ventured to think that their Association does not present altogether the best means to be devised for the promotion of the fine arts. Taste may be displayed in writing, as well as in buying pictures.

There was recently sold at auction at Paris, for 2,700 francs, a picture by Girodet, which in its time caused not a little amusement to the Parisians. It was originally a portrait of an actress of the Theatre Français, who married a rich banker. Girodet tried to get the pay for his picture, but the lady and her husband obstinately refused. Hereupon he transformed her into a Danae, receiving the shower of gold, adding other figures, such as a turkey cock representing the eagle of Jove, which rendered the whole work as laughable as it was uncomplimentary to its subject. It was exhibited in one of the expositions in the time of the empire, and no picture was ever more successful with the public.

Kotzbue, a historical painter, now residing at Munich, has nearly completed a large picture representing the battle of Züllichau, in 1759, where the Germans under General Wedel were defeated by the Russians under Soltikoff. The work is highly praised, and its author even compared with Horace Vernet for vividness of narrative, truth in detail, and force and harmony of color.

Mr. Elliott, probably the best portrait painter now living, will soon visit Marshfield, where Mr. Webster has promised to sit to him, for a friend of his in this city.

Two statues by the lamented Schwanthaler have just been set up in the royal library at Munich. The first represents Albert V., Duke of Bavaria, the founder of the library, and a great patron of science. Of course, he is presented in middle-age costume; his head is bare, his face reflective, and his right hand supports his chin,—an image of repose, after a work is accomplished. The other statue is of King Louis (of Lola Montes memory), in royal robes, the left hand resting on his sword, and his right holding the plan of the edifice containing the library, which was built by him. His whole expression is the opposite to that of the Duke, not repose, but restless activity in search of new objects. A critic says that these statues do not stand well on their feet, and that the knees are bent as if one leg was lame, a fault, he says, not peculiar to Schwanthaler.

We last month spoke of the New Museum at Berlin, one of the finest edifices of modern times. It may be interesting to our readers to know that the total expense of the building and interior decoration was in round numbers $1,100,000. Of this sum the execution of the ornamental work and works of art in the interior, including the frescoes of Kaulbach and others, with the arrangement of objects of art and furniture necessary for their display, cost upwards of $220,000.

The Exhibition of the Munich Art-Union took place in the beginning of March. Among the pictures, attention was particularly drawn to a series of sketches from Syria, Palestine, and Asia Minor, by Löfller. Baade exhibited a Norwegian picture, representing an effect of moonlight: Peter Hess two small humorous pieces from military life, which were greatly admired, as was especially a series of aquarelles representing scenes in Switzerland and Italy, by Suter, a Swiss artist.

Kaulbach only works at Berlin on his frescoes in the New Museum during the pleasant season. The second picture, the Destruction of Jerusalem, was nearly finished last fall when the cold came on. He left it, and it is now covered and concealed by brown paper till he shall again set to work on it.

M. Lamartine recently presented in the French Assembly a petition from William Tell Poussin, formerly minister of the Republic in the United States, praying the French Government to grant a block of granite, taken from the quarries of Cherbourg, for the national monument to Washington.

Widnmann, the sculptor, of Munich, has recently completed in plaster a group of the size of life, of a man defending his wife and child against the attack of a tiger. The figures are nude, and the only figure yet finished, that of the man, is spoken of as a model.[Pg 182]

HAS THERE BEEN A GREAT POET IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY!

The Eclectic Review for the last month, in an article upon the writings of Joanna Baillie, answers this question in the manner following:

"We may enumerate the following names as those of real poets, dead or alive, included in the first half of the nineteenth century in Britain:—Bloomfield, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Campbell, Moore, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Professor Wilson, Hogg, Croly, Maturin, Hunt, Scott, James Montgomery, Pollok, Tennyson, Aird, Mrs. Browning, Mrs. Hemans, Joanna Baillie, and the author of 'Festus.' We leave this list to be curtailed, or to be increased, at the pleasure of the reader. But, we ask, which of those twenty-three has produced a work uniquely and incontestably, or even, save in one or two instances, professedly great? Most of those enumerated have displayed great powers; some of them have proved themselves fit to begin greatest works; but none of them, whether he has begun, or only thought of beginning, has been able to finish. Bloomfield, the tame, emasculate Burns of England, has written certain pleasing and genuine poems smelling of the soil, but the 'Farmer's Boy' remained what the Scotch poet would have called a 'haflin callant,' and never became a full-grown and brawny man. Wordsworth was equal to the epic of the age, but has only constructed the great porch leading up to the edifice, and one or two beautiful cottages lying around. Coleridge could have written a poem—whether didactic, or epic, or dramatic—equal in fire and force to the 'Iliad,' or the 'Hamlet,' or the 'De Rerum Natura,' and superior to any of the three in artistic finish and metaphysical truth and religious feeling—a work ranking immediately beside the 'Paradise Lost;' but he has, instead, shed on us a shower of plumes, as from the wing of a fallen angel—beautiful, ethereal, scattered, and tantalizing. Southey's poems are large without being great—massive, without being majestic—they have rather the bulk of an unformed chaos than the order and beauty of a finished creation. Campbell, in many points the Virgil of his time, has, alas! written no Georgies; his odes and lesser poems are, 'atoms of the rainbow;' his larger, such as 'Gertrude of Wyoming,' may be compared to those segments of the showery arch we see in a disordered evening sky; but he has reared no complete 'bow of God.' Moore's 'Lalla Rookh' is an elegant and laborious composition—not a shapely building; it is put together by skilful art, not formed by plastic power. Byron's poems are, for the most part, disjointed but melodious groans, like those of Ariel from the centre of the cloven pine; 'Childe Harold' is his soliloquy when sober—'Don Juan' his soliloquy when half-drunk; the 'Corsair' would have made a splendid episode in an epic—but the epic, where is it? and 'Cain,' his most creative work, though a distinct and new world, is a bright and terrible abortion—a comet, instead of a sun. So, too, are the leading works of poor Shelley, which resemble Southey in size, Byron in power of language, and himself only in spirit and imagination, in beauties and faults. Keats, like Shelley, was arrested by death, as he was piling up enduring and monumental works. Professor Wilson has written 'Noctes' innumerable; but where is his poem on a subject worthy of his powers, or where is his work on any subject whatever? Hogg has bound together a number of beautiful ballads, by a string of no great value, and called it the 'Queen's Wake.' Scott himself has left no solid poem, but instead, loose, rambling, spirited, metrical romances—the bastards of his genius—and a great family of legitimate chubby children of novels, bearing the image, but not reaching the full stature, of their parent's mind. Croly's poems, like the wing of his own 'seraph kings,' standing beside the sleeping Jacob, has a 'lifted, mighty plume,' and his eloquence is always as classic as it is sounding; but it is, probably, as much the public's fault as his, that he has never equalled his first poem, 'Paris in 1815,' which now appears a basis without a building. Maturin has left a powerful passage or two, which may be compared to a feat performed by the victim of some strong disease, to imitate which no healthy or sane person would, could, or durst attempt. James Montgomery will live by his smaller poems—his larger are long lyrics—and when was a long lyric any other than tedious? Hunt has sung many a joyous carol, and many a pathetic ditty, but produced no high or lasting poem. Pollok has aimed at a higher object than almost any poet of his day; he has sought, like Milton, to enshrine religion in poetic form, and to attract to it poetic admirers: he did so in good faith, and he expended great talents and a young life, in the execution; but, unfortunately, he confounded Christianity with one of its narrowest shapes, and hence the book, though eloquent in passages, and dear to a large party, is rather a long and powerful, though unequal and gloomy sermon, than a poem; he has shed the sunshine of his genius upon his own peculiar notions, far more strongly than on general truths; and the spirit of the whole performance may be expressed in the words of Burns, slightly altered,—'Thunder-tidings of damnation.' His and our friend, Thomas Aird, has a much subtler, more original and genial mind than Pollok's, and had he enjoyed a tithe of the same recognition, he might have produced a Christian epic on a far grander scale; as it is, his poems are fragmentary and episodical, although Dante's 'Inferno' contains no pictures more tremendously distinct, yet ideal, than his 'Devil's Dream upon Mount Acksbeck. Tennyson is a greater Calvinist in one sense than either of the Scotch poets we have named—he owes more to the general faith of others in his genius than to any special or strong works of his own; but let us be dumb, he is now Laureate—the crowned grasshopper of a summer day! Bailey of 'Festus' has a vast deal more power than Tennyson, who is only his delicate, consumptive brother; but 'Festus' seems either different from, or greater than, a work. We are reminded of one stage in the history of the nebular hypothesis, when Sir W. Herschel, seeing a central mass in the midst of a round burr of light, was almost driven to the conclusion that it was something immensely greater than what we call a star—a kind of monster sun. So with the prodigious birth men call 'Festus.' Our gifted young friend Yendys is more likely than any, if he live and avoid certain tendencies to diffusion and over-subtlety, to write a solid and undying poem.

"It were easy to extend the induction to our lady authors, and to show that Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Browning, and Joanna Baillie, Mrs. Shelley, &c.,[Pg 183] have abounded rather in effusions or efforts, or tentative experiments, than in calm, complete, and perennial works."

The critic appears never to have heard of our Bryant, Dana, Halleck, Poe, Longfellow, or Maria Brooks, any one of whom is certainly superior to some of the poets mentioned in the above paragraph; and his doctrine that a great poem must necessarily be a long one—that poetry, like butter and cheese, is to be sold by the pound—does not altogether commend itself to our most favorable judgment.

THE REAL ADVENTURES AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF GEORGE BORROW.

Generally, we believe, Lavengro, though it has sold well everywhere, has not been very much praised. It has been conceded that the author of "the Bible in Spain" must be a Crichton, but his last performance looked overmuch like trifling with the credulity of his readers. We find in Colburn's New Monthly Magazine for April a sort of vindication of Borrow, which embraces some curious particulars of his career, and quote the following passages, which cannot fail to interest his American readers:

"We have yet to learn where our author was during the years intervening from the epoch of the dingle to the date of Spanish travel; that he was neither in mind nor body inactive, ample testimony may be adduced, not only in the form of writings made public during that interval, but in the internal evidence afforded by them of laborious research. In a work published at St. Petersburgh in 1835, known but to few, entitled "Targum; or, Metrical Translations from Thirty Languages and Dialects, by George Borrow," we find indications of how those intervening years were spent. He says, in the preface to this work, "The following pieces, selections from a huge and undigested mass of translation, accumulated during several years devoted to philological pursuits, are with much diffidence offered to the public," &c. These translations are remarkable for force and correct emphasis, and afford demonstration of what power the author possesses over metre. We shall cite but few examples, however, for it is believed that not only that huge mass, but many an additional song and ballad now is digested, and lies side by side with the glorious "Kæmpe Viser," the "Ab Gwilym," and other learned translations, by means of which it may be hoped that the gifted Borrow will ere long vindicate his lasting claim to scholarship—a claim to which it is to be feared he is indifferent, for he is no boaster, and does himself no justice; or, if he boasts at all, prefers, as with a species of self-sarcasm, the mention of his lesser, on which he dwells with zest, to that of his greater and more enduring triumphs. The "Targum" consists of translations from the following languages: Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Tartar, Tibetian, Chinese, Mandchou, Russian, Malo-Russian, Polish, Finnish, Anglo-Saxon, Ancient Norse, Suabian, German, Dutch, Danish, Ancient Danish, Swedish, Ancient Irish, Irish, Gaellic, Ancient British, Cambrian British, Greek, Modern Greek, Latin, Provençal, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Rommany. A few specimens from this work may be acceptable to the English reader—a work so rare, that the authorities of a German university not long ago sent a person to St. Petersburgh to endeavor to discover a copy:"

ODE TO GOD.

FROM THE HEBREW.

PRAYER.

FROM THE ARABIC.

O LORD! I NOTHING CRAVE BUT THEE.

FROM THE TARTAR.

Nor was this the only literary labor performed by Mr. Borrow while at St. Petersburgh: to the "Targum" he appended a translation of "The Talisman," and other pieces from the Russian of Alexander Pushkin. He also edited the Gospel in the Mandchou Tartar dialect while residing in that city. In connection with the latter undertaking there is an anecdote told of which, like the story of his making horse-shoes, shows his resources, and redounds to his credit. It runs thus:—"It was known that a fountain of types in the Mandchou Tartar character existed at a certain house in the city of St. Petersburgh, but there was no one to be found who could set them up. In this emergency the young editor demanded[Pg 184] to inspect the types; they were brought forth in a rusty state from a cellar; on which, resolved to see his editorial labors complete, he cleaned the types himself, and set them up with his own hand."

Of his journeyings in Spain Mr. Borrow has been his own biographer; but here again his higher claims to distinction are lightly touched on, or not named. In 1837 a book was printed at Madrid, having the following curious title-page:

"Embèo e Mafaró Lucas. Brotoboro randado andré la chipe griega, acáana chibado andré o Romanó, ó chipe es Zincales de Sese.

"El Evangelio segun S. Lucas, traducido al Romaní, ó dialecto de los Gitanos de España. 1837."

And this work is no other than the remarkable antecedent of the "Zincali,"—the translation of St. Luke's Gospel into the Gipsy dialect of Spain.[A] Of the Bible in Spain it is unnecessary to speak; there can be no better evidence of the estimation it is held in than the fact of its having been translated into French and German, while it has run through at least thirty thousand copies at home. But it is on the "Zincali" that Borrow's reputation will maintain its firm footing; the originality and research involved in its production, the labors and dangers it entailed, are duly appreciated at home and abroad. During the past year a highly interesting account of the Gipsies and other wandering people of Norway, written in Danish, was published at Christiana; it is entitled "Beretning om Fante—eller Landstrygerfolket i Norge" (Account of the Fant, or Wandering People of Norway), by Eilert Sundt. At the twenty-third page of this work, the Danish author, in allusion to the subject of this notice, says: "This Borrow is a remarkable man. As agent for the British Bible Society he has undertaken journeys into remote lands, and acquainted from his early youth, not only with many European languages, but likewise with the Rommani of the English Gipsies, he sought up with zest the Gipsies every where, and became their faithful missionary. He has made himself so thoroughly master of their ways and customs that he soon passed for one of their blood. He slept in their tents in the forests of Russia and Hungary, visited them in their robber caves in the mountainous pass regions of Italy, lived with them five entire years (towards 1840) in Spain, where he, for his endeavors to distribute the Gospel in that Catholic land, was imprisoned with the very worst of them for a time in the dungeons of Madrid. He at last went over to North Africa, and sought after his Tartars even there. It is true, no one has taken equal pains with Borrow to introduce himself among this rude and barbarous people, but on that account he has been enabled better than any other to depict the many mysteries of this race; and the frequent impressions which his book has undergone within a short period, show with what interest the English public have received his graphic descriptions."

Of the extraordinary acquisitions of Mr. Borrow in languages, a pleasant story is told by Sir William Napier, who, looking into a courtyard, from the window of a Spanish inn, heard a man converse successively in a dozen tongues, so fluently and so perfectly, that he was puzzled to decide what was his country,—Germany, Holland, France, Italy, Russia, Portugal, or Spain; and coming down he joined his circle, asked the question of him, and was astonished by the information that he was an English Bible agent. Between the historian of the Peninsular War and the missionary an intimacy sprung up, which we believe has continued without any interruption to the present time.

THE FAUN OVER HIS GOBLET.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

BY R. H. STODDARD.

My goblet was exceeding beautiful;
It was the jewel of my cave; I had
A corner where I hid it in the moss,
Between the jagged crevices of rock,
Where no one but myself could find it out;
But when a nymph, or wood-god passed my door,
I filled it to the brim with bravest wine,
And offered them a draught, and told them Jove
Had nothing finer, richer at his feasts,
Though Ganymede and Hebe did their best:
"His nectar is not richer than my wine,"
Said I, "and for the goblet, look at it!"
But I have broken my divinest cup
And trod its fragments in the dust of Earth!

II.

My goblet was exceeding beautiful.
Sometimes my brothers of the woods, the fauns,
Held gay carousals with me in my cave;
I had a skin of Chian wine therein,
Of which I made a feast; and all who drank
From out my cup, a feast within itself,
Made songs about the bright immortal shapes
Engraven on the side below their lips:
But we shall never drain it any more,
And never sing about it any more;
For I have broken my divinest cup
And trod its fragments in the dust of Earth!

III.

My goblet was exceeding beautiful.
For Pan was 'graved upon it, rural Pan;
He stood in horror in a marshy place
Clasping a bending reed; he thought to clasp
Syrinx, but clasped a reed, and nothing more!
There was another picture of the god,
When he had learned to play upon the flute;
He sat at noon within a shady bower
Piping, with all his listening herd around;
(I thought at times I saw his fingers move,
And caught his music: did I dream or not?)
Hard by the Satyrs danced, and Dryads peeped
From out the mossy trunks of ancient trees;
And nice-eared Echo mocked him till he thought—
The simple god!—he heard another Pan
Playing, and wonder shone in his large eyes!
But I have broken my divinest cup,
And trod its fragments in the dust of Earth!

IV.

My goblet was exceeding beautiful.
For Jove was there transformed into the Bull
Bearing forlorn Europa through the waves,
Leaving behind a track of ruffled foam;
Powerless with fear she held him by the horns,
Her golden tresses streaming on the winds;
In curvéd shells, young Cupids sported near,
While sea gods glanced from out their weedy caves,
And on the shore were maids with waving scarfs,
And hinds a-coming to the rescue—late!
But I have broken my divinest cup,
And trod its fragments in the dust of Earth!

My goblet was exceeding beautiful.
For rosy Bacchus crowned its rich designs:
He sat within a vineyard full of grapes,
With Ariadne kneeling at his side;
His arm was thrown around her slender waist,
His head lay in her bosom, and she held
A cup, a little distance from his lips,
And teased him with it, for he wanted it.
A pair of spotted pards where sleeping near,
Couchant in shade, their heads upon their paws;
And revellers were dancing in the woods,
Snapping their jolly fingers evermore!
But all is vanished, lost, for ever lost,
For I have broken my divinest cup,
And trod its fragments in the dust of Earth!

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The writer has before him another translation of St. Luke's Gospel in the Basque, edited by George Borrow while in Spain—(Evangeloia S. Lucasen Guissan.—El Evangelio segun S. Lucas. Traducido al Vascuere. Madrid. 1838).

THE JESUIT RELATIONS.

DR. O'CALLAGHAN'S MEMOIR—NEW DISCOVERIES IN ROME, &c.

At the stated meeting of the New-York Historical Society, in October, 1847, Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan, well known as the author of a valuable history of New-York under the Dutch,[B] and now engaged in superintending the publication of the Documentary History of the State, under the act of March 13, 1849, communicated a paper, which was read at the subsequent meeting in November, and published in the "Proceedings," on the "Jesuit Relations of Discoveries and other Occurrences in Canada and the Northern and Western States of the Union, 1632-1672."[C] This memoir embraces notices of the authors of the Relations, a catalogue raisonnée, and a table showing what volumes are in this country and Canada, and where they are to be found. A French translation of this work, with notes, corrections and additions, has been published (in 1850) at Montreal, by the Rev. Father Martin, Superior of the Jesuits in Canada. As the notes and additions contain valuable information, especially upon the discovery of new matter for the illustration of the general subject, we shall endeavor to present an intelligible compend of their substance.

The French editor carries back the history to 1611, when the first Jesuit missionaries to North America, Father Pierre Biard and Enmond Masse, arrived in Acadia. They took part in the establishment of Port Royal and that of St. Sauveur, in Pentagoet, now Mount Desert Island. The former wrote a Relation of his voyage.

Dr. O'Callaghan had spoken of the nomadic race which was to be subjected to the influences of the gospel, under the auspices of the Jesuit missionaries, as inhabiting the country extending from the island of Anticosti to the Mississippi. The translator qualifies this statement by a note, in which he says that this term nomadic is applicable to the nations of Algonquin origin, but not to the Hurons nor the Iroquois, who had fixed abodes and regularly organized villages or towns. The Five Nations were the Agniers (Mohawks), the Oneionts (Oneidas), the Onontagues (Onondagas), the Goiogoiens (Cayugas), and the Tsonnontouans (Senecas). The Tuscaroras, a tribe from the south, were admitted to the confederation, making thus Six Nations, during the last century.

Champlain was the first European who reached the Atlantic shores of the state of Maine from the St. Lawrence by way of the Kennebec. This illustrious discoverer was sent in 1629 to explore that route as far as the coast of the Etechemins, "in which he had been before in the time of the Sieur du Mont."[D]

The French editor adds the following notices of two of the fathers who filled the office of Superior in Canada, not mentioned by Dr. O'Callaghan.

Pierre Biard, according to the history of Jouvency, was born at Grenoble, and entered the Society of Jesus while yet very young. He came to Port Royal in 1611, and took part in the establishment of St. Sauveur à Pentagoet, in 1613. The English came from Virginia to destroy this settlement, scarcely yet commenced. After having suffered greatly from the enemies of Catholicism and the Jesuits, Father Biard was sent back to France. He taught theology at Lyons for nine years, and died at Avignon, November 17, 1622. He was then chaplain to the King's troops. He left a Relation de la Nouvelle France, and of the Voyage of the Jesuits, as well as some other works.

Charles Lalemant was born at Paris in 1587, and entered the Society of Jesus, at the age of twenty. Two of his brothers, Louis and Jerome, shortly afterwards followed his example, and the second labored for a long time in the Canadian mission. He first came to Canada in 1625. Charlevoix says he accompanied the expedition from Acadia in 1613, for the establishment of Pentagoet. He crossed the ocean four times in behalf of his beloved mission, and was twice shipwrecked. Having been captured by the English in one of these voyages, he was retained some time as a prisoner. His last voyage to Canada was made in 1634. In the following year, he took charge of the House of our Lady of Recovery, which was then established in the lower city of Quebec, and commenced at the same time the first schools for the French children. It was this father who was with Champlain in his last moments. Many years afterward, he returned to France, when he was successive chief of the Colleges of Rouen, of La Flèche and Paris, and Superior of the Maison Professe in the last named city. He died there, on the eighteenth of November, 1674, aged eighty-seven years.

Father Charles wrote an interesting Relation on Canada, inserted under the date of August 1, in the Mercure Français of 1626, and a letter on his shipwrecks, which Champlain published in his edition of 1632. We have also some religious works left by him.

The Relation of Father Biard was published at Lyons, 1612 and 1616, in 32mo. It gives an account of his travels and labors—the nature of the country, its mineral and vegetable productions, &c.

That of Father Lalemant is a long letter addressed to his brother Jerome, and inserted in the Mercure Français, 1627-28: Paris, 1629. It treats of the manners and customs of the Indians, the nature of the country, and the fatal change which trade had undergone since it had become a monopoly.

Continuing the researches of Dr. O'Callaghan, Father Martin found, from a catalogue of manuscripts on Canada, preserved among the archives of the Jesuits at Rome, that there was a Relation du Canada for 1676 and for[Pg 186] 1677: but it was not ascertained whether these were complete. Other manuscripts were found in the same collection, but fragmentary, and could only serve as the materiel of a general Relation. But a more important acquisition was made in the recovery of valuable manuscripts in Canada. There have been found two complete Relations, following that of 1672, and continuing the series to 1679. One is the Relation of 1673, and the other comprises a period of six years, from 1673 to 1679. They fortunately escaped the pillage of the Jesuit College at Quebec, Father Casot, the last of the old race of Jesuits, dying at Quebec in 1800, had confided them, with other manuscripts, to the pious hands of the nuns of the Hotel Dieu, in that city, who preserved them for a long time as a sacred trust, and restored them, to the Jesuits, when they returned to Canada in 1842.

What increases the value of these historical monuments, is the fact, that they are contemporary with the facts to which they relate. They bear numerous corrections, notes, and even entire pages, in the handwriting of Father Dablon, then superior of the missions in Canada, who, without doubt, prepared them for publication.

That of 1672-3 is anonymous, and in three parts. The first is on the Huron mission near Quebec, the second on the Iroquois missions, and the third on the various missions to the west of the great lakes. In the last part, consisting of eighty-seven pages, the thirty-ninth and fortieth are missing.

The Relation for 1673-9 is also anonymous and without a general title, but on the back of the last leaf is an endorsement in the handwriting of Father Dablon, "Relation en 1679, abrégé des précédentes." On the first page the writer announces that the relation embraces a period of six years. It is divided into eight chapters, subdivided into paragraphs. The second chapter is devoted to an account of the last labors and heroic death of Father Marquette, on the lonely shore of the "Lac des Illinois," now Lake Michigan. This relation passes in review all the missions of the west, and enters into minute details concerning the missions to the Iroquois, the Montagnais, the Gaspésiens, those of the Sault St. Louis, and Lorette. It extends to 147 pages, but unfortunately one entire sheet is lost, embracing the pages 109 to 118.

This last Relation should have included the other voyages of Father Marquette, and especially the discovery of the Mississippi in 1673; but another manuscript of the same epoch, and which bears the same evidence of authenticity, explains the omission. Under the title of "Voyage and Death of Father Marquette," it recites in sixty pages the labors which have immortalized that celebrated missionary. This curious manuscript furnished Thevenot with the materiel for his publication in 1687, entitled "Voyage et Découverte de quelques Pays et Nations de l'Amerique Septentrionale, par le P. Marquette et le Sr. Joliet."[E] What adds great value to the manuscript is the fact that it is much more extended than the publication of Thevenot. The causes and the preparations for the expedition are recounted; and we can follow the missionary in his various travels, even to his last moments in 1675.

Two other documents, which complete this valuable historical discovery, are noticed by Father Martin:

1. The autograph journal of Marquette's last voyage, from the twenty-fifth of October 1674 to the sixth of April 1679, about a month before his death.

2. The autograph map (by Marquette) of the Mississippi, as discovered by him. This extends no farther than the "A Kansea" (Arkansas), where his voyage in that direction terminated.

The map published by Thevenot, and recently reproduced by Rich, Bancroft, and others, is incorrect in many particulars, especially with regard to this fact of the Arkansas being the lowest point reached by Marquette.

Besides the two Relations (MS.) aforesaid, and the Marquette manuscripts, fragments of the Relations for the years 1674, 1676, 1678, and the following years, have been found, but incomplete.

In addition to all these, Father Martin calls attention to one of the printed Relations, little known out of Italy, in the language of which it was written. It was printed at Macerata in 1653. A recent letter from Father Martin announces that he has completed translations into French and English, which will soon be published. It is the work of Father Francois Joseph Bressani, and is thus noticed by Charlevoix:

"Father Bressani, a Roman by birth, was one of the most illustrious missionaries to Canada, where he suffered a cruel captivity, and severe tortures. He speaks little of himself in his history, which is well written, but which relates almost entirely to the Huron mission, in which he labored with great zeal so long as it continued. After the almost entire destruction of that nation, and the dispersion of the remainder, he returned to Italy, where he continued to preach until his death, with the greater success, inasmuch as he bore in his mutilated hands the glorious marks of his apostleship among the heathen."[F]

Recent letters from Italy announce further discoveries in the library of the Dominican Friars at Rome. We congratulate the historical student on the recovery of these and similar memorials of the early history of the country. Especially the labors of the Jesuit missionaries deserve to be more generally familiar[Pg 187] to the readers of history; and we cordially respond to the sentiment of approbation with which the services of Dr. O'Callaghan and Father Martin have been greeted heretofore by the press.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] History of New Netherland, or New-York under the Dutch. &c. 2 vols. 8vo. New-York: Appleton & Co., 1846-8.

[C] Proceedings of the New-York Historical Society. For the year 1847, pp. 140-158.

[D] Voyage du Champlain. Ed. 1632. p. 209.

[E] A copy of this very rare work was destroyed with the valuable library in the burning of the Parliament House in Montreal, 26th April, 1849.

[F] Charlevoix: Hist. Nouv. France. Liste des Auteurs.

THE HAT REFORM AGITATION.

New hats are inevitable. Genin, who appears to be as clever in writing as in making hats, has avowed himself a conservative, and in a long argument has vindicated the style of which he is so eminent a manufacturer. But the "people" are for reform, and we must all bend to the will of the people; land reform, bank reform, all kinds of reform, now are forgotten in the cry for a reform in hats; this has rallied around it all ranks, classes and orders: they say, "Take off your funnels!"

It has been responded to with enthusiasm. From the lord of one hundred thousand acres to the hard-worker for his daily bread—from the ultra-conservative to the ultra-destructive—from the High-Churchman to the No-Churchman—from the Puseyite to the Presbyterian—from the gentleman down to the veriest "gent," this new question of Reform has drawn unanimous adhesion. In fact, the attempted revolution in our head gear, more fortunate than the other revolutions talked about of late years, promises to be successful.

Says the London News, "The ladies are as unanimous as the gentlemen on the subject, and give the potent assistance of their voices to the movement, and wonder how it is that men, who have so keen a sense of the beautiful, should have been so long blinded to the ugliness imposed upon their lordly foreheads by the hat-makers. A few of the most conservative of these hat-makers are the only persons who venture a word in defence of the ancient barbarism which it is the object of the revolutionists to remove. Now and then a hatter of all novelties, whether of hats or of ideas, will venture to come to the aid of the hat-makers, and to ask if any one can suggest a better head 'accoutrement' than the old familiar hat which it is attempted to scout out of society with such hasty ignominy. But, if hatters and the hat conservatives are closely pressed to tell us what recommendation the article has, they are obliged to give up the argument in despair—to intrench themselves in the old fortress of such reasoners, and to defend what is, merely because it is. They would stand on the old ways, were they knee-deep in slush; and they would wear the old hat, were it not only of the shape, but of the material and the color of a chimney-pot.

"Every body who has worn a hat, has perceived it to be a nuisance, although he may never have said any thing on the subject till the present cry was raised. As soon as a man gets out of the streets of the capital, or of his own accustomed provincial town, and sets foot in a railway carriage or on board of a steamboat, his first care is to make himself comfortable by disembarrassing his aching temples of his hat. The funnel is put away, and a cap, more ornamental and a thousand times more easy, is elevated to the place of honor, to the great satisfaction of the wearer. Who ever wears a hat at the sea-side? One might as well go to bed in a hat, as wear one out of the purlieus of the town. At the sea-side, or in travelling, or sporting, or rambling over the hills, the ordinary hat is utterly out of the question. Not only is the hat unsightly, expensive, and incommodious;—not only does it offend those æsthetic notions which are so fashionable in our time, but it may be safely alleged that it is hostile to all mental effort. Did any man ever make an eloquent speech with a hat on? Could a painter paint a good picture if he had a hat on while engaged at the easel? Could a mathematician solve a problem? could a musician compose a melody or arrange a harmony? could a poet write a song, or a novelist a novel, or a journalist a leading article, with a hat on? The thing is impossible. Would any man who respected himself, or the feelings of his family and friends, consent to have his portrait painted with the offensive article upon his cranium? It would be almost a proof of insanity, both in the sitter who should insist upon, and the artist who should lend himself to, the perpetration of such an atrocity. We have but to fancy one out of the thousand statues of bronze or marble which it is proposed to erect to the memory of Sir Robert Peel in our great towns and cities, surmounted with a hat of marble or of bronze, to see, at a glance, the absurdity of the thing, and the reasonableness of the demand for a change. There is a very good bust of Chaucer, with a cap on, and there is a still more excellent bust of Lorenzo de Medici, which has also a cap; but we put the question to the most conservative of hatters, and to the greatest stickler for the etatus quo in head attire, whether he would tolerate the marble or bronze portraiture of either of those worthies with the modern hat upon its head? The idea is so preposterous, that, if fairly considered, it would make converts of the most obstinate sticklers for the hat of the nineteenth century.

"Seriously, the suggestion for the reform of this article of costume is entitled to the utmost respect. Already Englishmen, when they throw off the trammels of ceremony, and wish to be at their ease, substitute for the stiff, uncomfortable, and inelegant hat, such other article as the taste and enterprise of the hat and cap manufacturers have provided; and in France and Germany the hat has, for the last six or seven years, been gradually altering its form and substance, until it bids fair to be restored, at no distant day, to the more sensible and picturesque shape which it had a couple of centuries ago. So much unanimity has been expressed on the desirability of a change, so much sober truth has been uttered under the thin veil of jest on this matter, and so keenly felt are the inconveniences—to say[Pg 188] nothing of the inelegance—of the tube which has usurped and maintained a place upon our heads for so long a period, that there can be no doubt the time is ripe for the introduction of an article of male head-dress more worthy of an educated, civilized, and sensible people. The Turks, under the influence of that great reformer, Sultan Mahmoud, and his worthy successor, Abdul Medjid, have been for some time assimilating themselves in dress to the other inhabitants of Europe. They have adopted our coats, our trousers, our vests, our boots. They have got steamboats and newspapers—but Sultan Mahmoud stopped short at the hat. With all his penchant for imitating the 'Giaours,' he could not bring himself to recommend the hat to a people whom he was desirous to civilize. Any man of taste and enterprise, who would take advantage of the present feeling on the subject to manufacture a hat or cap of a more picturesque form, would confer a public benefit, and would not lack encouragement for his wares. An article which would protect the face from the sun, which the present 'funnel' does not—which should be light, which the hat is not—which should be elegant, and no offence to the eye of taste if painted in a portrait or sculptured in a statue, which the hat is not—and which should meet the requirements of health, as well as those of comfort and appearance, which the hat is very far from doing—would, all jest and persiflage apart, be a boon to the people of this generation. It needs but example to effect the change, for the feeling is so strong and universal that a good substitute would meet with certain popularity. We have no doubt that, sooner or later, this reform will be made; and that the historian, writing fifty years hence, will note it in his book as a remarkable circumstance, and a proof of the pertinacity with which men cling to all which habit and custom have rendered familiar—that for three-quarters of a century, if not longer, a piece of attire so repugnant to the eye of taste, and so deficient in any quality which should recommend it to sensible people, should have been not only tolerated, but admired. In all seriousness, we hope that the days of the tubular hat are numbered, and that in this instance philosophy in sport will become reformation in earnest."

PROFESSIONAL DEVOTION.

Lord Campbell said lately in the House of Lords, that the bill for the Registration of Assurances was drawn by Mr. Duval, and he related an anecdote illustrative of that gentleman's entire devotion to his professional pursuits. A gentleman one day said to him, "But do you not find it very dull work poring from morning until night over those dusty sheep-skins?" "Why," said Duval, "to be sure it is a little dull, but every now and then I come across a brilliant deed, drawn by a great master, and the beauty of that recompenses me for the weariness of all the others."

"THE WILFULNESS OF WOMAN."

In an early number of The International we mentioned a MS. comedy by the late Mrs. Osgood, in connection with the commendations which the dramatic pieces of that admirable woman and most charming poet had received from Sheridan Knowles and other critics in that line. We transcribe the opening scene of the play, which strikes us as excellently fitted for the stage. The friends of the lamented authoress will perceive that it is an eminently characteristic production, though having been written at an early age it scarcely illustrates her best style of dialogue.

ACT FIRST.—SCENE FIRST.

A room in the Chateau de Beaumont. Victorine de Vere and Rosalinde—the former sitting.

Rosalinde.—But consider, sweet lady, you have been betrothed from childhood to my lord the Count. You say it was your father's dying wish that you should marry him, and he has been brought up to consider you his own.

Victorine.—And for that reason wed I not the Count;
I might have loved him had I not been bid,
For he is noble, brave, and passing kind.
But, Rosalinde, when 'mid my father's vines,
A child I roamed, I shunned the rich, ripe fruit
Within my reach, and stretched my little arm
Beyond its strength, for that which farthest hung,
Though poorest too perchance. Years past away,
The wilful child is grown a woman now,
Yet wilful still, and wayward as the child.

(She Sings.)

Though you wreathe in my raven hair jewels the rarest
That ever illumined the brow of a queen,
I should think the least one that were wanting, the fairest,
And pout at their lustre in petulant spleen.
Tho' the diamond should lighten there, regal in splendor,
The topaz its sunny glow shed o'er the curl,
And the emerald's ray tremble, timid and tender—
If the pearl were not by, I should sigh for the pearl!

Though you fling at my feet all the loveliest flowers
That Summer is waking in forest and field,
I should pine 'mid the bloom you had brought from her bowers
For some little blossom spring only could yield.
Take the rose, with its passionate beauty and bloom,
The lily so pure, and the tulip so bright—
Since I miss the sweet violet's lowly perfume,
The violet only my soul can delight!

I prize not Henri—for a breath, a nod,
Can make him mine for ever. One I prize
Whose pulse ne'er quickened at my step or voice,
Who cares no more for smile from Victorine,
Whom princes sue—than Victorine for them.
But he shall love me—ay, and when he too
Lies pleading at my feet!—I make no doubt
But I shall weary of mine idle whim,
And rate him well for daring to be there!

Vic.—Whom think you, Rosalinde? Eugene Legard! the brave young captain—lover of Carille—betrothed to her—about to marry her!

Vic.—(Impatiently.) Now know you not the youthful village belle whose face my gallant cousin raves about? I would he'd wed the girl, and leave Legard and me as free, to wed! (Enter the Count.) What, torment! here again! (Exit Rosalinde.)

Count.—Lady, it shall not weary you again; I've borne your light caprice too long already. For the last time I come to ask of you, madam, Is it your pleasure we fulfil at once your father's last injunction?

Vic.—Ah! but this isn't the last time, Henri; I'll wager you this hand with my heart in it, you will ask me the same question a dozen times yet ere you die.

Count.—I'll not gainsay you, lady; time will show. (A short pause.) Yet, by my sword, if such your wager be, I will be dumb till doomsday.

Vic.—Then book the bet! and claim my heart and hand—(she pauses—he waits in eager hope)—on—doomsday morning, cousin!

Vic.—Beside, all the world expects it you know; I do so hate to fulfil people's expectations: it is so commonplace and humdrum!

Count.—Depend upon it, Lady Victorine, nobody ever expected you to do any thing reasonable or commonplace or humdrum!

Vic.—There! you can sing! I'll give the——hem!—his due. I only wish you could make love as well as you make verses.

Vic.—How? You should be at my feet all day and under my window all night; you should call black white when I call it so, and—wear a single hair of my eyelash next your heart for ever.

Vic.—Yes: you should write sonnets on the sole of my shoe, and study every curve of my brow, as if life and death were in its rise or fall! (He turns away.) Henri, come here! (He approaches.) Come! you are a good-looking man enough, after all! Ah! why couldn't my poor father have forbidden me to marry you! He might have known I should have been sure in that case to have fallen desperately in love with you, Henri!

Count.—By Heaven, I will bear this trifling no longer! I will write instantly and propose to the peasant girl, Carille—she will be proud to be called La Contesse de Beaumont.

Vic.—Will you do so? Oh, you darling cousin! I shall love you dearly when you are once married! And, cousin, I don't believe she'll live till doomsday, do you? Don't forget that I'm to be your second—on doomsday morning, cousin. (Exit Count in a rage.) I am so happy—and Carille will be so happy too—I am sure she will! I know if I were a village girl I should be dying to be a lady—for now I am a lady I am dying to be a village girl—heigh-ho. (Exit.)

A STORY WITHOUT A NAME.[G]

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.

Continued from page 57.

CHAPTER XXII.

In a very gaudily furnished parlor, and in a very gaudy dress, sat a lady of some eight or nine and thirty years of age, with many traces of beauty still to be perceived in a face of no very intellectual expression. Few persons perhaps would have recognized in her the fair and faulty girl whom we have depicted weeping bitterly over the fate of Sir Philip Hastings' elder brother, and over the terrible situation in which he left her. Her features had much changed: the girlish expression—the fresh bloom of youth was gone. The light graceful figure was lost; but the mind had changed as greatly as the person, though, like it, the heart yet retained some traces of the original. When first she appeared before the reader's eyes, though weak and yielding, she was by no means ill disposed. She had committed an error—a great and fatal one; but at heart she was innocent and honest. She was, however, like all weak people, of that plastic clay moulded easily by circumstances into any form; and, in her, circumstances had shaped her gradually into a much worse form than nature had originally given her. To defraud, to cheat, to wrong, had at one time been most abhorrent to her nature. She had taken no active part in her father's dealings with old Sir John Hastings, and had she known all that he had said and sworn, would have shrunk with horror from the deceit. But during her father's short life, she had been often told by himself, and after his death had been often assured by the old woman Danby, that she was rightly and truly the widow of John Hastings, although because it would be difficult to prove, her father had consented to take an annuity for himself and her son, rather than enter into a lawsuit with a powerful man; and she had gradually brought herself to believe that she had been her lover's wife, because in one of his ardent letters he had called her so to stifle the voice of remorse in her bosom. The conviction had grown upon her, till now, after a lapse of more than twenty years, she had forgotten all her former doubts and scruples, believed herself and her son to be injured and deprived of their just rights, and was ready to assert her marriage boldly, though she had at one time[Pg 190] felt and acknowledged that there was no marriage at all, and that the words her seducer had used were but intended to soothe her regret and terror. There was a point however beyond which she was not prepared to go. She still shrunk from giving false details, from perjuring herself in regard to particular facts. The marriage, she thought, might be good in the sight of heaven, of herself, and of her lover; but to render it good in the eyes of the law, she had found would require proofs that she could not give—oaths that she dared not take.

Another course, however, had been proposed for her; and now she sat in that small parlor gaudily dressed, as I have said, but dressed evidently for a journey. There were tears indeed in her eyes; and as her son stood by her side she looked up in his face with a beseeching look as if she would fain have said, "Pray do not drive me to this!"

But young John Ayliffe had no remorse, and if he spoke tenderly to her who had spoiled his youth, it was only because his object was to persuade and cajole.

"Indeed, mother," he said, "it is absolutely necessary or I would not ask you to go. You know quite well that I would rather have you here: and it will only be for a short time till the trial is over. Lawyer Shanks told you himself that if you stayed, they would have you into court and cross-examine you to death; and you know quite well you could not keep in one story if they browbeat and puzzled you."

"I would say any where that my marriage was a good one," replied his mother, "but I could not swear all that Shanks would have had me, John—No, I could not swear that, for Dr. Paulding had nothing to do with it, and if he were to repeat it all over to me a thousand times, I am sure that I should make a blunder, even if I consented to tell such a falsehood. My father and good Mrs. Danby used always to say that the mutual consent made a marriage, and a good one too. Now your father's own letter shows that he consented to it, and God knows I did. But these lawyers will not let well alone, and by trying to mend things make them worse, I think. However, I suppose you have gone too far to go back; and so I must go to a strange out of the way country and hide myself and live quite lonely. Well, I am ready—I am ready to make any sacrifice for you, my boy—though it is very hard, I must say."

As she spoke, she rose with her eyes running over, and her son kissed her and assured her that her absence should not be long. But just as she was moving towards the door, he put a paper—a somewhat long one—on the table, where a pen was already in the inkstand, saying, "just sign this before you go, dear mother."

"Oh, I cannot sign any thing," cried the lady, wiping her eyes; "how can you be so cruel, John, as to ask me to sign any thing just now when I am parting with you? What is it you want?"

"It is only a declaration that you are truly my father's widow," said John Ayliffe; "see here, the declaration, &c., you need not read it, but only just sign here."

She hesitated an instant; but his power over her was complete; and, though she much doubted the contents, she signed the paper with a trembling hand. Then came a parting full of real tenderness on her part, and assumed affection and regret on his. The post-chaise, which had been standing for an hour at the door, rolled away, and John Ayliffe walked back into the house.

When there, he walked up and down the room for some time, with an impatient thoughtfulness, if I may use the term, in his looks, which had little to do with his mother's departure. He was glad that she was gone—still gladder that she had signed the paper; and now he seemed waiting for something eagerly expected.

At length there came a sound of a quick trotting horse, and John Ayliffe took the paper from the table hastily, and put it in his pocket. But the visitor was not the one he expected. It was but a servant with a letter; and as the young man took it from the hand of the maid who brought it in, and gazed at the address, his cheek flushed a little, and then turned somewhat pale. He muttered to himself, "she has not taken long to consider!"

As soon as the slipshod girl had gone out of the room, he broke the seal and read the brief answer which Emily had returned to his declaration.

It would not be easy for an artist to paint, and it is impossible for a writer to describe, the expression which came upon his face as he perused the words of decided rejection which were written on that sheet; but certainly, had poor Emily heard how he cursed her, how he vowed to have revenge, and to humble her pride, as he called it, she would have rejoiced rather than grieved that such a man had obtained no hold upon her affection, no command of her fate. He was still in the midst of his tempest of passion, when, without John Ayliffe being prepared for his appearance, Mr. Shanks entered the room. His face wore a dark and somewhat anxious expression which even habitual cunning could not banish; but the state in which he found his young client, seemed to take him quite by surprise.

"Why what is the matter, John?" he cried, "what in the name of fortune has happened here?"

"What has happened!" exclaimed John Ayliffe, "look there," and he handed Mr. Shanks the letter. The attorney took it, and with his keen weazel eyes read it as deliberately as he would have read an ordinary law paper. He then handed it back to his young client, saying, "The respondent does not put in a bad answer."

"Well, well, this cannot be helped," rejoined[Pg 191] Mr. Shanks; "no need of putting yourself in a passion. You don't care two straws about her, and if you get the property without the girl so much the better. You can then have the pick of all the pretty women in the country."

John Ayliffe mused gloomily; for Mr. Shanks was not altogether right in his conclusion as to the young man's feelings towards Emily. Perhaps when he began the pursuit he cared little about its success, but like other beasts of prey, he had become eager as he ran—desire had arisen in the chase—and, though mortified vanity had the greatest share in his actual feelings, he felt something beyond that.

While he mused, Mr. Shanks was musing also, calculating results and combinations; but at length he said, in a low tone, "Is she gone?—Have you got that accomplished?"

"Gone?—Yes.—Do you mean my mother?—Damn it, yes!—She is gone, to be sure.—Didn't you meet her?"

"No," said Mr. Shanks; "I came the other way. That is lucky, however. But harkee, John—something very unpleasant has happened, and we must take some steps about it directly; for if they work him well, that fellow is likely to peach."

"Who?—what the devil are you talking about?" asked John Ayliffe, with his passion still unsubdued.

"Why, that blackguard whom you would employ—Master Tom Cutter," answered Mr. Shanks. You know I always set my face against it, John; and now——"

"Peach!" cried John Ayliffe, "Tom Cutter will no more peach than he'll fly in the air. He's not of the peaching sort."

"Perhaps not, where a few months' imprisonment are concerned," answered Mr. Shanks; "but the matter here is his neck, and that makes a mighty difference, let me tell you. Now listen to me, John, and don't interrupt me till I've done; for be sure that we have got into a very unpleasant mess, which we may have some difficulty in getting out of. You sent over Tom Cutter, to see if he could not persuade young Scantling, Lord Selby's gamekeeper, to remember something about the marriage, when he was with his old father the sexton. Now, how he and Tom manage their matters, I don't know; but Tom gave him a lick on the head with a stick, which killed him on the spot. As the devil would have it, all this was seen by two people, a laborer working in a ditch hard by, and Scantling's son, a boy of ten years old. The end of it is, Tom was instantly pursued, and apprehended; your good uncle, Sir John, was called to take the depositions, and without any remand whatever, committed our good friend for trial. Tom's only chance is to prove that it was a case of chance-medley, or to bring it under manslaughter, as a thing done in a passion, and if he thinks that being employed by you will be any defence, or will show that it was a sudden burst of rage, without premeditation, he will tell the whole story as soon as he would eat his dinner."

"I'd go over to him directly, and tell him to hold his tongue," cried John Ayliffe, now fully awakened to the perils of the case.

"Pooh, pooh! don't be a fool," said Mr. Shanks, contemptuously. "Are you going to let the man see that you are afraid of him—that he has got you in his power? Besides, they will not let you in. No, the way must be this. I must go over to him as his legal adviser, and I can dress you up as my clerk. That will please him, to find that we do not abandon him; and we must contrive to turn his defence quite another way, whether he hang for it or not. We must make it out that Scantling swore he had been poaching, when he had done nothing of the kind, and that in the quarrel that followed, he struck the blow accidentally. We can persuade him that this is his best defence, which perhaps it is after all, for nobody can prove that he was poaching, inasmuch as he really was not; whereas, if he were to show that he killed a man while attempting to suborn evidence, he would speedily find himself under a cross-beam."

"Suborn evidence," muttered John Ayliffe to himself; for though ready to do any act that might advance his purpose, he did not like to hear it called by its right name.

However that might be, he agreed to the course proposed by the attorney, and it was determined that, waiting for the fall of night, they should both go over to the prison together, and demand admittance to the felon's cell. The conversation then reverted to Emily's distinct rejection of the young man's suit, and long did the two ponder over it, considering what might be the effect upon the plans they were pursuing.

"It may hurry us desperately," said Mr. Shanks, at length, "unless we can get her to hold her tongue; for depend upon it, as soon as Sir Philip hears what we are doing, he will take his measures accordingly. Don't you think you and Mrs. Hazleton together can manage to frighten her into silence? If I were you, I would get upon my horse's back directly, ride over, and see what can be done. Your fair friend there will give you every help, depend upon it."

John Ayliffe smiled. "I will see," he said. "Mrs. Hazleton is very kind about it, and I dare say will help, for I am quite sure she has got some purpose of her own to serve."

The attorney grinned, but made no answer, and in the space of a quarter of an hour, John Ayliffe was on the road to Mrs. Hazleton's dwelling.

After quarter of an hour's private conversation with the lady of the house, he was admitted to the room in which Emily sat, unconscious of his being there. She was displeased and alarmed at seeing him, but his words and his conduct after he entered, frightened and displeased her still more. He demanded secrecy[Pg 192] in a stern and peremptory tone, and threatened with vague, but not ill-devised menaces, to be the ruin of her father and his whole house, if she breathed one word of what had taken place between them. He sought, moreover, to obtain from her a promise of secrecy; but that Emily would on no account give, although he terrified her greatly; and he left her still in doubt as to whether his secret was safe or not.

With Mrs. Hazleton he held another conference, but from her he received better assurances. "Do not be afraid," she said; "I will manage it for you. She shall not betray you—at least for a time. However, you had better proceed as rapidly as possible, and if the means of pursuing your claim be necessary—I mean in point of money—have no scruple in applying to me."

Putting on an air of queenly dignity, Mrs. Hazleton proceeded in search of Emily, as soon as the young man was gone. She found her in tears; and sitting down by her side, she took her hand in a kindly manner, saying, "My dear child, I am very sorry for all this, but it is really in some degree your own fault. Nay, you need not explain any thing. I have just had young Ayliffe with me. He has told me all, and I have dismissed him with a sharp rebuke. If you had confided to me last night that he had proposed to you, and you had rejected him, I would have taken care that he should not have admittance to you. Indeed, I am surprised that he should presume to propose at all, without longer acquaintance. But he seems to have agitated and terrified you much. What did he want?"

"He endeavored to make me promise," replied Emily, "that I would not tell my father, or any one, of what had occurred."

"Foolish boy! he might have taken that for granted," replied Mrs. Hazleton, forgetting for an instant what she had just said. "No woman of any delicacy ever speaks of a matter of this kind, when once she has taken upon herself to reject a proposal unconditionally. If she wishes for advice," continued the lady, recollecting herself, "or thinks that the suit may be pressed improperly, of course she's free to ask counsel and assistance of some female friend, on whom she can depend. But the moment the thing is decided, of course, she is silent for ever; for nothing can be more a matter of honorable confidence than an avowal of honorable love. I will write him a note, and tell him he is in no danger, but warn him not to present himself here again, so long as you are with me."

Emily made no answer, trying to decide in her own mind whether Mrs. Hazleton's reasoning was right; and that lady, choosing to take her assent for granted, from her silence, hurried away, to give her no opportunity for retracting.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Before the door of a large brick building, with no windows towards the street, and tall walls rising up till they overtopped the neighboring houses, stood two men, about an hour after night had fallen, waiting for admittance. The great large iron bar which formed the knocker of the door, had descended twice with a heavy thump, but yet no one appeared in answer to the summons. It was again in the hand of Mr. Shanks and ready to descend, when the rattling of keys was heard inside; bolts were withdrawn and bars cast down, and one half of the door opened, displaying a man with a lantern, which he held up to gaze at his visitors. His face was fat and bloated, covered with a good number of spots, and his swollen eyelids made his little keen black eyes look smaller than they even naturally were, while his nose, much in the shape of a horsechestnut, blushed with the hues of the early morning.

"How are you, Cram, how are you?" asked the attorney. "I haven't been here for a long time, but you know me, I suppose."

"Oh, yes, I know you, Master Shanks," replied the jailer, winking one of his small black eyes; "who have you come to see? Betty Diaper, I'll warrant, who prigged the gentleman's purse at the bottom of the hill. She's as slink a diver as any on the lay; but she's got the shiners and so must have counsel to defend her before the beak, I'll bet a gallon."

"No, no," answered Mr. Shanks, "our old friend Tom Cutter wants to see me on this little affair of his."

"You'll make no hand of that, as sure as my name's Dionysius Cram," replied the jailer. "Can't prove an alibi there, Master Shanks, for I saw him do the job; besides he can't pay. What's the use of meddling with him? He must swing some time you know, and one day's as good as another. But come in, Master Shanks, come in. But who's this here other chap?"

The man laughed, but demurred, but a crown piece was in those days the key to all jailers' hearts, and after a show of hesitation, Shanks and his young companion were both admitted within the gates. They now found themselves in a small square space, guarded on two sides by tall iron railings, which bent overhead, and were let into the wall somewhat after the manner of a birdcage. On the left-hand side, however, was another brick wall, with a door and some steps leading up to it. By this entrance Mr. Dionysius Cram led them into a small jailer's lodge, with a table and some wooden chairs, in the side of which, opposite to the entrance, was a strong movable grate, between the bars of which might be seen a yawning sort of chasm leading into the heart of the prison.

Again Mr. Cram's great keys were put in motion, and he opened the grate to let them pass, eyeing John Ayliffe with considerable attention as he did so. Locking the grate carefully behind him, he lighted them on with his lantern, muttering as he went in the peculiar[Pg 193] prison slang of those days, various sentences not very complimentary to the tastes and habits of young John Ayliffe, "Ay, ay," he said, "clerk be damned! One of Tom's pals, for a pint and a boiled bone—droll I don't know him. He must be twenty, and ought to have been in the stone pitcher often enough before now. Dare say he's been sent to Mill Dol, for some minor. That's not in my department, I shall have the darbies on him some day. He'd look handsome under the tree."

John Ayliffe had a strong inclination to knock him down, but he restrained himself, and at length a large plated iron door admitted the two gentlemen into the penetralia of the temple.

A powerful smell of aqua vitæ and other kinds of strong waters now pervaded the atmosphere, mingled with that close sickly odor which is felt where great numbers of uncleanly human beings are closely packed together; and from some distance was heard the sounds of riotous merriment, ribald song, and hoarse, unfeeling laugh, with curses and execrations not a few. It was a time when the abominations of the prison system were at their height.

"Here, you step in here," said Mr. Cram to the attorney and his companion, "and I'll bring Tom to you in a minute. He's having a lush with some of his pals; though I thought we were going to have a mill, for Jack Perkins, who is to be hanged o' Monday, roused out his slack jaw at him for some quarrel about a gal, and Tom don't bear such like easily. Howsumdever, they made it up and clubbed a gallon. Stay, I'll get you a candle end;" and leaving them in the dark, not much, if the truth must be told, to the satisfaction of John Ayliffe, he rolled away along the passage and remained absent several minutes.

When he returned, a clanking step followed him, as heavy irons were dragged slowly on by unaccustomed limbs, and the moment after, Tom Cutter stood in the presence of his two friends.

The jailer brought them in a piece of candle about two inches long, which he stuck into a sort of socket attached to an iron bar projecting straight from the wall; and having done this he left the three together, taking care to close and lock the door behind him.

Chair or stool in the room there was none, and the only seat, except the floor, which the place afforded was the edge of a small wooden bedstead or trough, as it might be called, scantily furnished with straw.

Both Mr. Shanks and John Ayliffe shook hands with the felon, whose face, though somewhat flushed with drinking, bore traces of deeper and sterner feelings than he chose to show. He seemed glad to see them, however, and said it was very kind of them to come, adding with an inquiring look at Mr. Shanks, "I can't pay you, you know, Master lawyer; for what between my garnish and lush, I shall have just enough to keep me till the 'sizes; I shan't need much after that I fancy."

"Pooh, pooh," cried the attorney, "don't be downhearted, Tom, and as to pay, never mind that. John here will pay all that's needful, and we'll have down counsellor Twistem to work the witnesses. We can't make out an alibi, for the folks saw you, but we'll get you up a character, if money can make a reputation, and I never knew the time in England when it could not. We have come to consult with you at once as to what's the best defence to be made, that we may have the story all pat and right from the beginning, and no shifting and turning afterwards."

"I wish I hadn't killed the man," said Tom Cutter, gloomily; "I shan't forget his face in a hurry as he fell over and cried out 'Oh, my poor—!' but the last word choked him. He couldn't get it out; but I fancy he was thinking of his wife—or maybe his children. But what could I do? He gave me a sight of bad names, and swore he would peach about what I wanted him to do. He called me a villain, and a scoundrel, and a cheat, and a great deal more besides, till my blood got up, and having got the stick by the small end, I hit him with the knob on the temple. I didn't know I hit so hard; but I was in a rage."

"That's just what I thought—just what I thought," said Mr. Shanks. "You struck him without premeditation in a fit of passion. Now if we can make out that he provoked you beyond bearing—"

"That's what I say," continued Mr. Shanks, "if we can make out that he provoked you beyond bearing while you were doing nothing unlawful and wrong, that isn't murder, Tom."

"Hum," said Tom Cutter, "but how will you get that up, Mr. Shanks? I've a notion that what I went to him about was devilish unlawful."

"Ay, but nobody knew any thing of that but you and he, and John Ayliffe and I. We must keep that quite close, and get up a likely story about the quarrel. You will have to tell it yourself, you know, Tom, though we'll make counsellor Twistem let the jury see it beforehand in his examinations."

A gleam of hope seemed to lighten the man's face, and Mr. Shanks continued, "We can prove, I dare say, that this fellow Scantling had a great hatred for you."

"No, no, he had not," said Tom Cutter, "he was more civil to me than most, for we had been boys together."

"That doesn't matter," said Mr. Shanks, "we must prove it; for that's your only chance, Tom. If we can prove that you always spoke well of him, so much the better; but we must show that he was accustomed to abuse you, and to call you a damned ruffian and a poacher. We'll do it—we'll do it; and then if you stick tight to your story, we'll get you off."

"But what's the story to be, master Shanks?" asked Tom Cutter, "I can't learn a long one; I never was good at learning by heart."

"Oh, no; it shall be as short and simple as[Pg 194] possible," replied Shanks; "you must admit having gone over to see him, and that you struck the blow that killed him. We can't get over that, Tom; but then you must say you're exceedingly sorry, and was so the very moment after."

"And your story must refer," continued Mr. Shanks, "to nothing but what took place just before the blow was struck. You must say that you heard he accused you of putting wires in Lord Selby's woods, and that you went over to clear yourself; but that he abused you so violently, and insulted you so grossly, your blood got up and you struck him, only intending to knock him down. Do you understand me?"

"Quite well—quite well," replied Tom Cutter, his face brightening; "I do think that may do, 'specially if you can make out that I was accustomed to speak well of him, and he to abuse me. It's an accident that might happen to any man."

"To be sure," replied Mr. Shanks; "we will take care to corroborate your story, only you get it quite right. Now let us hear what you will say."

Tom Cutter repeated the tale he had been taught very accurately; for it was just suited to his comprehension, and Shanks rubbed his hands, saying, "That will do—that will do."

John Ayliffe, however, was still not without his anxieties, and after a little hesitation as to how he should put the question which he meditated, he said, "Of course, Tom, I suppose you have not told any of the fellows here what you came over for?"

"No, no, John," he said, "I have'nt peached, and shall not; be you sure of that. If I am to die, I'll die game, depend upon it; but I do think there's a chance now, and we may as well make the best of it."

"To be sure—to be sure," answered the more prudent Shanks; "you don't think, Mr. Ayliffe, that he would be fool enough to go and cut his own throat by telling any one what would be sure to hang him. That is a very green notion."

"Oh, no, nor would I say a word that could serve that Sir Philip Hastings," said Tom Cutter; "he's been my enemy for the last ten years, and I could see he would be as glad to twist my neck as I have been to twist his hares. Perhaps I may live to pay him yet."

"I'm not sure you might not give him a gentle rub in your defence," said John Ayliffe; "he would not like to hear that his pretty proud daughter Emily came down to see me, as I'm sure she did, let her say what she will, when I was ill at the cottage by the park gates. You were in the house, don't you recollect, getting a jug of beer, while I was sitting at the door when she came down?"

"I remember, I remember," replied Tom Cutter, with a malicious smile; "I gave him one rub which he didn't like when he committed me, and I'll do this too."

"Take care," said Mr. Shanks, "you had better not mix up other things with your defence."

"Oh, I can do it quite easily," replied the other with a triumphant look; "I could tell what happened then, and how I heard there that people suspected me of poaching still, though I had quite given it up, and how I determined to find out from that minute who it was accused me."

"That can do no harm," said Shanks, who had not the least objection to see Sir Philip Hastings mortified; and after about half an hour's farther conversation, having supplied Tom Cutter with a small sum of money, the lawyer and his young companion prepared to withdraw. Shanks whistled through the key-hole of the door, producing a shrill loud sound as if he were blowing over the top of a key; and Dionysius Cram understanding the signal, hastened to let them out.

Before we proceed farther, however, with any other personage, we may as well trace the fate of Mr. Thomas Cutter.

The assizes were approaching near at this time, and about a fortnight after, he was brought to trial; not all the skill of counsellor Twistem, however, nor the excellent character which Mr. Shanks tried to procure for him, had any effect; his reputation was too well established to be affected by any scandalous reports of his being a peaceable and orderly man. His violence and irregular life were too well known for the jury to come to any other conclusion than that it would be a good thing to rid the country of him, and whether very legally or not, I cannot say, they brought in a verdict of wilful murder without quitting the box. His defence, however, established for him the name of a very clever fellow, and one portion of it certainly sent Sir Philip Hastings from the Court thoughtful and gloomy. Nevertheless, no recommendation to mercy having issued from the Judge, Tom Cutter was hanged in due form of law, and to use his own words, "died game."

CHAPTER XXIV.

We must go back a little, for we have somewhat anticipated our tale. Never did summons strike more joyfully on the ear of mortal than came that of her recall home to Emily Hastings. As so often happens to all in life, the expected pleasure had turned to ashes on the lip, and her visit to Mrs. Hazleton offered hardly one point on which memory could rest happily. Nay, more, without being able definitely to say why, when she questioned her own heart, the character of her beautiful hostess had suffered by close inspection. She was not the same in Emily's esteem as she had been before. She could not point out what Mrs. Hazleton had said or done to produce such an impression; but she was less amiable,—less reverenced. It was not alone that[Pg 195] the trappings in which a young imagination had decked her were stripped off; but it was that a baser metal beneath had here and there shown doubtfully through the gilding with which she concealed her real character.

If the summons was joyful to Emily, it was a surprise and an unpleasant one to Mrs. Hazleton. Not that she wished to keep her young guest with her long; for she was too keen and shrewd not to perceive that Emily would not be worked upon so easily as she had imagined; and that under her very youthfulness there was a strength of character which must render one part of the plans against her certainly abortive. But Mrs. Hazleton was taken by surprise. She could have wished to guard against construction of some parts of her conduct which must be the more unpleasant, because the more just. She had fancied she would have time to give what gloss she chose to her conduct in Emily's eyes, and to prevent dangerous explanations between the father and the daughter. Moreover, the suddenness of the call alarmed her and raised doubts. Whereever there is something to be concealed there is something to be feared, and Mrs. Hazleton asked herself if Emily had found means to communicate to Sir Philip Hastings what had occurred with John Ayliffe.

That, however, she soon concluded was impossible. Some knowledge of the facts, nevertheless, might have reached him from other sources, and Mrs. Hazleton grew uneasy. Sir Philip's letter to his daughter, which Emily at once suffered her hostess to see, threw no light upon the subject. It was brief, unexplicit, and though perfectly kind and tender, peremptory. It merely required her to return to the Hall, as some business rendered her presence at home necessary.

Little did Mrs. Hazleton divine the business to which Sir Philip alluded. Had she known it, what might have happened who can say? There were terribly strong passions within that fair bosom, and there were moments when those strong passions mastered even strong worldly sense and habitual self-control.

There was not much time, however, for even thought, and less for preparation. Emily departed, after having received a few words of affectionate caution from Mrs. Hazleton, delicately and skilfully put, in such a manner as to produce the impression that she was speaking of subjects personally indifferent to herself—except in so much as her young friend's own happiness was concerned.

Shall we say the truth? Emily attended but little. Her thoughts were full of her father's letter, and of the joy of returning to a home where days passed peacefully in an even quiet course, very different from that in which the stream of time had flowed at Mrs. Hazleton's. The love of strong emotions—the brandy-drinking of the mind—is an acquired taste. Few, very few have it from nature. Poor Emily, she little knew how many strong emotions were preparing for her.

Gladly she saw the carriage roll onward through scenes more and more familiar at every step. Gladly she saw the forked gates appear, and marked the old well-known hawthorns as they flitted by her; and the look of joy with which she sprang into her father's arms, might have convinced any heart that there was but one home she loved.

"Now go and dress for dinner at once, my child," said Sir Philip, "we have delayed two hours for you. Be not long."

Nor was Emily long; she could not have been more rapid had she known that Marlow was waiting eagerly for her appearance. Well pleased, indeed, was she to see him, when she entered the drawing-room; but for the first time since she had known him—from some cause or other—a momentary feeling of embarrassment—of timidity, came upon her; and the color rose slightly in her cheek. Her eyes spoke, however, more than her lips could say, and Marlow must have been satisfied, if lovers ever could be satisfied.

Lady Hastings was lying languidly on a couch, not knowing how to intimate to her daughter her disapproval of a suit yet unknown to Emily herself. She could not venture to utter openly one word in opposition; for Sir Philip Hastings had desired her not to do so, and she had given a promise to forbear, but she thought it would be perfectly consistent with that promise, and perfectly fair and right to show in other ways than by words, that Mr. Marlow was not the man she would have chosen for her daughter's husband, and even to insinuate objections which she dare not state directly.

In her manner to Marlow therefore, Lady Hastings, though perfectly courteous and polite—for such was Sir Philip's pleasure—was as cold as ice, always added "Sir" to her replies, and never forgot herself so far as to call him by his name.

Emily remarked this demeanor; but she knew—I should rather have said she was aware; for it was a matter more of sensation than thought—a conviction that had grown up in her mind without reflection—she was aware that her mother was somewhat capricious in her friendships. She had seen it in the case of servants and of some of the governesses she had had when she was quite young. One day they would be all that was estimable and charming in Lady Hastings' eyes, and another, from some slight offence—some point of demeanor which she did not like—or some moody turn of her own mind, they would be all that was detestable. It had often been the same, too, with persons of a higher station; and therefore it did not in the least surprise her to find that Mr. Marlow, who had been ever received by Lady Hastings before as a familiar friend, should now be treated almost as a stranger.

It grieved her, nevertheless, and she thought that Marlow must feel her mother's conduct painfully. She would fain have made up for[Pg 196] it by any means in her power, and thus the demeanor of Lady Hastings had an effect the direct reverse of that which she intended. Nor did her innuendos produce any better results, for she soon saw that they grieved and offended her husband, while her daughter showed marvellous stupidity, as she thought, in not comprehending them.

Full of love, and now full of hope likewise, Marlow, it must be confessed, thought very little of Lady Hastings at all. He was one of those men upon whom love sits well—they are but few in the world—and whatever agitation he might feel at heart, there was none apparent in his manner. His attention to Emily was decided, pointed, not to be mistaken by any one well acquainted with such matters; but he was quite calm and quiet about it; there was no flutter about it—no forgetfulness of proprieties; and his conversation had never seemed to Emily so agreeable as that night, although the poor girl knew not what was the additional charm. Delightful to her, however, it was; and in enjoying it she forgot altogether that she had been sent for about business—nay, even forgot to wonder what that business could be.

Thus passed the evening; and when the usual time for retiring came, Emily was a little surprised that there was no announcement of Mr. Marlow's horse, or Mr. Marlow's carriage, as had ever been the case before, but that Mr. Marlow was going to spend some days at the hall.

When Lady Hastings rose to go to rest, and her daughter rose to go with her, another thing struck Emily as strange. Sir Philip, as his wife passed him, addressed to her the single word "Beware!" with a very marked emphasis. Lady Hastings merely bowed her head, in reply; but when she and Emily arrived at her dressing-room, where the daughter had generally stayed to spend a few minutes with her mother alone, Lady Hastings kissed her, and wished her good night, declaring that she felt much fatigue, and would ring for her maid at once.

Lady Hastings was a very good woman, and wished to obey her husband's injunctions to the letter, but she felt afraid of herself, and would not trust herself with Emily alone.

Dear Emily lay awake for half an hour after she had sought her pillow, but not more, and then she fell into a sleep as soft and calm as that of childhood, and the next morning rose as blooming as the flower of June. Sir Philip was up when she went down stairs, and walking on the terrace with Marlow. Lady Hastings sent word that she would breakfast in her own room, when she had obtained a few hours' rest, as she had not slept all night. Thus Emily had to attend to the breakfast-table in her mother's place; but in those days the lady's functions at the morning meal were not so various and important as at present; and the breakfast passed lightly and pleasantly. Still there was no mention of the business which had caused Emily to be summoned so suddenly, and when the breakfast was over, Sir Philip retired to his library, without asking Emily to follow, and merely saying, "You had better not disturb your mother, my dear child. If you take a walk I will join you ere long."

For the first time, a doubt, a notion—for I must not call it a suspicion—came across the mind of Emily, that the business for which she had been sent might have something to do with Mr. Marlow. How her little heart beat! She sat quite still for a minute or two, for she did not know, if she rose, what would become of her.

At length the voice of Marlow roused her from her gently-troubled reverie, as he said, "Will you not come out to take a walk?"

She consented at once, and went away to prepare. Nor was she long, for in less than ten minutes, she and Marlow were crossing the park, towards the older and thicker trees amidst which they had rambled once before. But it was Marlow who now led her on a path which he chose himself. I know not whether it was some memory of his walk with Mrs. Hazleton, or whether it was that instinct which leads love to seek shady places, or whether, like a skilful general, he had previously reconnoitred the ground; but something or other in his own breast induced him to deviate from the more direct track which they had followed on their previous walk, and guide his fair companion across the short dry turf towards the thickest part of the wood, through which there penetrated, winding in and out amongst the trees, a small path, just wide enough for two, bowered overhead by crossing branches, and gaining sweet woodland scenes of light and shade at every step, as the eye dived into the deep green stillness between the large old trunks, carefully freed from underwood, and with their feet carpeted with moss, and flowers, and fern. It was called the deer's track, from the fact that along it, morning and evening, all the bucks and does which had herded on that side of the park might be seen walking stately down to or from a bright, clear-running trout-stream, that wandered along about a quarter of a mile farther on; and often, in the hot weather, a person standing half way down the walk might see a tall antlered fellow standing with his forefeet in the water and his hind-quarters raised upon the bank, gazing at himself in the liquid mirror below, with all his graceful beauties displayed to the uttermost by a burst of yellow light, which towards noon always poured upon the stream at that place.

Marlow and Emily, however, were quite alone upon the walk. Not even a hind or shart was there; and after the first two or three steps, Marlow asked his fair companion to take his arm. She did so, readily; for she needed it, not so much because the long gnarled roots of the trees crossed the path from time to time, and offered slight impediments, for[Pg 197] usually her foot was light as air, but because she felt an unaccountable languor upon her, a tremulous, agitated sort of unknown happiness unlike any thing else she had ever before experienced.

Marlow drew her little hand through his then, and she rested upon it, not with the light touch of a mere acquaintance, but with a gentle confiding pressure which was very pleasant to him, and yet the capricious man must needs every two or three minutes, change that kindly position as the trees and irregularities of the walk afforded an excuse. Now he placed Emily on the one side, now on the other, and if she had thought at all (but by this time she was far past thought,) she might have fancied that he did so solely for the purpose of once more taking her hand in his to draw it through his arm again.

At the spot where the walk struck the stream, and before it proceeded onward by the bank, there was a little irregular open space not twenty yards broad in any direction, canopied over by the tall branches of an oak, and beneath the shade about twelve yards from the margin of the stream, was a pure, clear, shallow well of exceedingly cold water, which as it quietly flowed over the brink went on to join the rivulet below. The well was taken care of, kept clean, and basined in plain flat stones; but there was no temple over it, Gothic or Greek. On the side farthest from the stream was a plain wooden bench placed for the convenience of persons who came to drink the waters which were supposed to have some salutary influence, and there by tacit consent Marlow and Emily seated themselves side by side.

They gazed into the clear little well at their feet, seeing all the round variegated pebbles at the bottom glistening like jewels as the branches above, moved by a fresh wind that was stirring in the sky, made the checkered light dance over the surface. There was a green leaf broken by some chance from a bough above which floated about upon the water as the air fanned it gently, now hither, now thither, now gilded by the sunshine, now covered with dim shadow. After pausing in silence for a moment or two, Marlow pointed to the leaf with a light and seemingly careless smile, saying, "See how it floats about, Emily. That leaf is like a young heart full of love."

"Indeed," said Emily, looking full in his face with a look of inquiry, for perhaps she thought that in his smile she might find an interpretation of what was going on in her own bosom. "Indeed! How so?"

"Do you not see," said Marlow, "how it is blown about by the softest breath, which stirs not the less sensitive things around, how it is carried by any passing air now into bright hopeful light, now into dim melancholy shadow?"

"And is that like love?" asked Emily. "I should have thought it was all brightness."

"Ay, happy love—love returned," replied Marlow, "but where there is uncertainty, a doubt, there hope and fear make alternately the light and shade of love, and the lightest breath will bear the heart from the one extreme to the other—I know it from the experience of the last three days, Emily; for since last we met I too have fluctuated between the light and shade. Your father's consent has given a momentary gleam of hope, but it is only you who can make the light permanent."

Emily shook, and her eyes were bent down upon the water; but she remained silent so long that Marlow became even more agitated than herself. "I know not what I feel," she murmured at length,—"it is very strange."

"But hear me, Emily," said Marlow, taking her unresisting hand, "I do not ask an immediate answer to my suit. If you regard me with any favor—if I am not perfectly indifferent to you, let me try to improve any kindly feelings in your heart towards me in the bright hope of winning you at last for my own, my wife. The uncertainty may be painful—must be painful; but—"

"No, no, Marlow," cried Emily, raising her eyes to his face for an instant with her cheek all glowing, "there must be no uncertainty. Do you think I would keep you—you, in such a painful state as you have mentioned? Heaven forbid!"

"Then what am I to think?" asked Marlow, pressing closer to her side and gliding his arm round her. "I am almost mad to dream of such happiness, and yet your tone, your look, my Emily, make me so rash. Tell me then—tell me at once, am I to hope or to despair?—Will you be mine?"

"I can almost doubt my senses," said Marlow; but he had no occasion to doubt them.

They sat there for nearly half an hour; they then wandered on, with marvellous meanderings in their course, for more than an hour and a half more, and when they returned, Emily knew more of love than ever could be learned from books. Marlow drew her feelings forth and gave them definite form and consistency. He presented them to her by telling what he himself felt in a plain and tangible shape, which required no long reverie—none of their deep fits of thoughtfulness to investigate and comprehend. From the rich store of his own imagination, and the treasury of deep feeling in his breast, he poured forth illustrations that brightened as if with sunshine every sensation which had been dark and mysterious in her bosom before; and ere they turned their steps back towards the house, Emily believed—nay, she felt; and that is much more—that without knowing it, she had loved him long.

CHAPTER XXV.

This must be a chapter of rapid action, comprising in its brief space the events of many months—events which might not much interest the reader in minute detail, but which produced important results to all the persons concerned, and drew on the coming catastrophe.[Pg 198]

The news that Mr. Marlow was about to be married to Emily, the beautiful heiress of Sir Philip Hastings, spread far and wide over the country; and if joy and satisfaction reigned in the breasts of three persons in Emily's dwelling, discontent and annoyance were felt more and more strongly every hour by Lady Hastings. A Duke, she thought, would not have been too high a match for her daughter, with all the large estates she was to inherit; and the idea of her marrying a simple commoner was in itself very bitter. She was not a woman to bear a disappointment gracefully; and Emily soon had the pain of discovering that her engagement to Marlow was much disapproved by her mother. She consoled herself, however, by the full approval of her father, who was somewhat more than satisfied.

Sir Philip for his part, considering his daughter's youth, required that the marriage should be delayed at least two years, and, in his theoretical way, he soon built up a scheme, which was not quite so successful as he could have wished. Marlow's character was, in most respects, one after his own heart; but as I have shown, he had thought from the first, that there were weak points in it,—or rather points rendered weak by faults of education and much mingling with the world. He wanted, in short, some of that firmness—may I not say hardness of the old Roman, which Sir Philip so peculiarly admired; and the scheme now was, to re-educate Marlow, if I may use the term, during the next two years, to mould him in short after Sir Philip's own idea of perfection. How this succeeded, or failed, we shall have occasion hereafter to show.

Tidings of Emily's engagement were communicated to Mrs. Hazleton, first by rumor, and immediately after by more certain information in a letter from Lady Hastings. I will not dwell upon the effect produced in her. I will not lift up the curtain with which she covered her own breast, and show all the dark and terrible war of passions within. For three days Mrs. Hazleton was really ill, remained shut up in her room, had the windows darkened, admitted no one but the maid and the physician; and well for her was it, perhaps, that the bitter anguish she endured overpowered her corporeal powers, and forced seclusion upon her. During those three days she could not have concealed her feelings from all eyes had she been forced to mingle with society; but in her sickness she had time for thought—space to fight the battle in, and she came forth triumphant.

When she at length appeared in her own drawing-room no one could have imagined that the illness was of the heart. She was a little paler than before, there was a soft and pleasing languor about her carriage, but she was, to all appearance, as calm and cheerful as ever.

Nevertheless she thought it better to go to London for a short time. She did not yet dare to meet Emily Hastings. She feared herself.

Yet the letter of Lady Hastings was a treasure to her, for it gave her hopes of vengeance. In it the mother showed but too strongly her dislike of her daughter's choice, and Mrs. Hazleton resolved to cultivate the friendship of Lady Hastings, whom she had always despised, and to use her weakness for her own purposes.

She was destined, moreover, to have other sources of consolation, and that more rapidly than she expected. It was shortly before her return to the country that the trial of Tom Cutter took place; and not long after she came back that he was executed. Many persons at the trial had remarked the effect which some parts of the evidence had produced on Sir Philip Hastings. He was not skilful in concealing the emotions that he felt, and although it was sometimes difficult, from the peculiarities of his character, to discover what was their precise nature, they always left some trace by which it might be seen that he was greatly moved.

Information of the facts was given to Mrs. Hazleton by Shanks the attorney, and young John Ayliffe, who dwelt with pleasure upon the pain his successful artifice had inflicted; and Mrs. Hazleton was well pleased too.

But the wound was deeper than they thought. It was like that produced by the bite of a snake—insignificant in itself, but carrying poison into every vein.

Could his child deceive him? Sir Philip Hastings asked himself. Could Emily have long known this vulgar youth—gone secretly down to see him at a distant cottage—conferred with him unknown to either father or mother? It seemed monstrous to suppose such a thing; and yet what could he believe? She had never named John Ayliffe since her return from Mrs. Hazleton's; and yet it was certain from Marlow's own account, that she had seen him there. Did not that show that she was desirous of concealing the acquaintance from her parents?

Sir Philip had asked no questions, leaving her to speak if she thought fit. He was now sorry for it, and resolved to inquire; as the fact of her having seen the young man, for whom he felt an inexpressible dislike, had been openly mentioned in a court of justice. But as he rode home he began to argue on the other side of the question. The man who had made the assertion was a notorious liar—a convicted felon. Besides, he knew him to be malicious; he had twice before thrown out insinuations which Sir Philip believed to be baseless, and could only be intended to produce uneasiness. Might not these last words of his be traced to the same motive? He would inquire in the first place, he thought, what was the connection between the convict and John Ayliffe, and stopping on the way for that purpose, he soon satisfied himself that the two were boon companions.

When he reached his own dwelling, he found Emily seated by Marlow in one of her brightest,[Pg 199] happiest moods. There was frank candor, graceful innocence, bright open-hearted truth in every look and every word. It was impossible to doubt her; and Sir Philip cast the suspicion from him, but, alas! not for ever. They would return from time to time to grieve and perplex him; and he would often brood for hours over his daughter's character, puzzling himself more and more. Yet he would not say a word—he blamed himself for even thinking of the matter; and he would not show a suspicion. Yet he continued to think and to doubt, while poor unconscious Emily would have been ready, if asked, to solve the whole mystery in a moment. She had been silent from an unwillingness to begin a painful subject herself; and though she had yielded no assent to Mrs. Hazleton's arguments, they had made her doubt whether she ought to mention, unquestioned, John Ayliffe's proposal and conduct. She had made up her mind to tell all, if her father showed the slightest desire to know any thing regarding her late visit; but there was something in the effects which that visit had produced on her mind, which she could not explain to herself.

Why did she love Mrs. Hazleton less? Why had she lost so greatly her esteem for her? What had that lady done or said which justified so great a change of feeling towards her? Emily could not tell. She could fix upon no word, no act, she could entirely blame—but yet there had been a general tone in her whole demeanor which had opened the poor girl's eyes too much. She puzzled herself sadly with her own thoughts; and probably would have fallen into more than one of her deep self-absorbed reveries, had not sweet new feelings, Marlow's frequent presence, kept her awake to a brighter, happier world of thought.

She was indeed very happy; and, could she have seen her mother look brighter and smile upon her, she would have been perfectly so. Her father's occasional moodiness she did not heed; for he often seemed gloomy merely from intense thought. Emily had got a key to such dark reveries in her own heart, and she knew well that they were no true indications either of discontent or grief, for very often when to the eyes of others she seemed the most dull and melancholy, she was enjoying intense delight in the activity of her own mind. She judged her father from herself, and held not the slightest idea that any word, deed or thought of hers had given him the slightest uneasiness.

Notwithstanding the various contending feelings and passions which were going on in the little circle on which our eyes are fixed, the course of life had gone on with tolerable smoothness as far as Emily and Marlow were concerned, for about two months, when, one morning, Sir Philip Hastings received a letter in a hand which he did not know. It reached him at the breakfast table, and evidently affected him considerably with some sort of emotion. His daughters instantly caught the change of his countenance, but Sir Philip did not choose that any one should know he could be moved by any thing on earth, and he instantly repressed all agitation, quietly folded up the letter again, concluded his breakfast, and then retired to his own study.

Emily was not deceived, however. There were moments in Sir Philip's life when he was unable to conceal altogether the strong feelings of his heart under the veil of stoicism—or as he would have termed it—to curb and restrain them by the power of philosophy. Emily had seen such moments, and knew, that whatever were the emotions produced by that letter, whether of anger or grief or apprehension—her father was greatly moved.

In his own study, Sir Philip Hastings seated himself, spread the letter before him, and read it over attentively. But now it did not seem to affect him in the least. He was, in fact, ashamed of the feelings he had experienced and partly shown. "How completely," said he to himself, "does a false and fictitious system of society render us the mere slaves of passion, infecting even those who tutor themselves from early years to resist its influence. Here an insolent young man lays claim to my name, and my inheritance, and coolly assumes not only that he has a title to do so, but that I know it; and this instead of producing calm contempt, makes my heart beat and my blood boil, as if I were the veriest schoolboy."

The letter was all that Sir Philip stated; but it was something more. It was a very artful epistle, drawn up by the joint shrewdness of Mr. Shanks, Mr. John Ayliffe, and Mrs. Hazleton. It concisely stated the claims of the young man who signed it, to all the property of the late Sir John Hastings and to the baronetcy. It made no parade of proofs, but assumed that those in the writer's possession were indisputable, and also that Sir Philip Hastings was well aware that John Ayliffe was his elder brother's legitimate son. The annuity which had been bought for himself and his mother was broadly stated to have been the purchase-money of her silence, negotiated by her father, who had no means to carry on a suit at law. As long as his mother lived, the writer said, he had been silent out of deference to her wishes, but now that she was dead in France, he did not feel himself bound to abide by an arrangement which deprived him at once of fortune and station, and which had been entered into without his knowledge or consent. He then went on to call upon Sir Philip Hastings in the coolest terms to give up possession and acknowledge his right without what the writer called "the painful ceremony of a lawsuit;" and in two parts of the letter allusion was made to secret information which the writer had obtained by the kind confidence of a friend whom he would not name.

It was probably intended to give point to this insinuation at an after period, but if it was aimed at poor Emily, it fell harmless for[Pg 200] the time, as no one knew better than Sir Philip that she had never been informed of any thing which could affect the case in question.

Indeed, the subject of the annuity was one which he had never mentioned to any one since the transaction had been completed many years before; and the name of John Ayliffe had never passed his lips till Marlow mentioned having seen that young man at Mrs. Hazleton's house.

When he had read the letter, and as soon as he thought he had mastered the last struggle of passion, he dipped the pen in the ink and wrote the few following words:

"Sir Philip Hastings has received the letter signed John Ayliffe Hastings. He knows no person of that name, but has heard of a young man of the name of John Ayliffe. If that person thinks he has any just claim on Sir Philip Hastings, or his estate, he had better pursue it in the legal and ordinary course, as Sir Philip Hastings begs to disclaim all private communication with him."

He addressed the letter to "Mr. John Ayliffe," and sent it to the post. This done, he rejoined Marlow and Emily, and to all appearance was more cheerful and conversable than he had been for many a previous day. Perhaps it cost him an effort to be cheerful at all, and the effort went a little beyond its mark. Emily was not altogether satisfied, but Lady Hastings, when she came down, which, as usual, was rather late in the day, remarked how gay her husband was.

Sir Philip said nothing to any one at the time regarding the contents of the letter he had received. He consulted no lawyer even, and tried to treat the subject with contemptuous forgetfulness; but his was a brooding and tenacious mind, and he often thought of the epistle, and the menaces it implied, against his own will. Nor could he or any one connected with him long remain unattentive or ignorant of the matter, for in a few weeks the first steps were taken in a suit against him, and, spreading from attorneys' offices in every direction, the news of such proceedings travelled far and wide, till the great Hastings case became the talk of the whole country round.

In the mean time, Sir Philip's reply was very speedily shown to Mrs. Hazleton, and that lady triumphed a good deal. Sir Philip was now in the same position with John Ayliffe, she thought, that she had been in some time before with Mr. Marlow; and already he began to show, in her opinion, a disposition to treat the case very differently in his own instance and in hers.

There he had strongly supported private negotiation; here he rejected it altogether; and she chose to forget that circumstances, though broadly the same, were in detail very different.

"We shall see," she said to herself, "we shall see whether, when the proofs are brought forward, he will act with that rigid sense of justice, which he assumed here."

When the first processes had been issued, however, and common rumor justified a knowledge of the transaction, without private information, Mrs. Hazleton set out at once to visit "poor dear Lady Hastings," and condole with her on the probable loss of fortune. How pleasant it is to condole with friends on such occasions. What an accession of importance we get in our own eyes, especially if the poor people we comfort have been a little bit above us in the world.

But Mrs. Hazleton had higher objects in view; she wanted no accession of importance. She was quite satisfied with her own position in society. She sought to see and prompt Lady Hastings—to sow dissension where she knew there must already be trouble; and she found Sir Philip's wife just in the fit frame of mind for her purpose. Sir Philip himself and Emily had ridden out together; and though Mrs. Hazleton would willingly have found an opportunity of giving Sir Philip a sly friendly kick, and of just reminding him of his doctrines announced in the case between herself and Mr. Marlow, she was not sorry to have Lady Hastings alone for an hour or two. They remained long in conference, and I need not detail all that passed. Lady Hastings poured forth all her grief and indignation at Emily's engagement to Mr. Marlow, and Mrs. Hazleton did nothing to diminish either. She agreed that it was a very unequal match, that Emily with her beauty and talents, and even with her mother's fortune alone, might well marry into the highest family of the land. Nay, she said, could the match be broken off, she might still take her rank among the peeresses. She did not advise, indeed, actual resistance on the part of her friend; she feared Lady Hastings' discretion; but she insinuated that a mother and a wife by unwavering and constant opposition, often obtained her own way, even in very difficult circumstances.

FOOTNOTES:

[G] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by G. P. R. James, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-York.

NATURAL REVELATION.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY ALFRED B. STREET.

HEART-WHISPERS.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY MARY E. HEWITT.

THE SNOWDROP IN THE SNOW.

BY SYDNEY YENDYS.

O full of Faith! The Earth is rock,—the Heaven
The dome of a great palace all of ice,
Russ-built. Dull light distils through frozen skies
Thickened and gross. Cold Fancy droops her wing,
And cannot range. In winding-sheets of snow
Lies every thought of any pleasant thing.
I have forgotten the green earth; my soul
Deflowered, and lost to every summer hope,
Sad sitteth on an iceberg at the Pole;
My heart assumes the landscape of mine eyes
Moveless and white, chill blanched with hoarest rime;
The Sun himself is heavy and lacks cheer
Or on the eastern hill or western slope;
The world without seems far and long ago;
To silent woods stark famished winds have driven
The last lean robin—gibbering winds of fear!
Thou only darest to believe in spring,
Thou only smilest, Lady of the Time!

Even as the stars come up out of the sea
Thou risest from the Earth. How is it down
In the dark depths? Should I delve there, O Flower,
For beauty? Shall I find the Summer there
Met manifold, as in an ark of peace?
And Thou, a lone white Dove art thou sent forth
Upon the winter deluge? It shall cease,
But not for thee—pierced by the ruthless North
And spent with the Evangel. In what hour
The flood abates thou wilt have closed thy wings
For ever. When the happy living things
Of the old world come forth upon the new
I know my heart shall miss thee; and the dew
Of summer twilights shall shed tears for me
—Tears liker thee, ah, purest! than mine own—
Upon thy vestal grave, O vainly fair!

Thou shouldst have noble destiny, who, like
A Prophet, art shut out from kind and kin!
Who on the winter silence comest in
A still small voice. Pale Hermit of the Year,
Flower of the Wilderness! oh, not for thee
The jocund playmates of the maiden spring.
For when the danceth forth with cymballed feet,
Waking a-sudden with great welcoming,
Each calling each, they burst from hill to dell
In answering music. But thou art a bell.
A passing bell, snow-muffled, dim and sweet.

As is the Poet to his fellow-men,
So mid thy drifting snows, O Snowdrop, Thou.
Gifted, in sooth, beyond them, but no less
A snowdrop. And thou shalt complete his lot
And bloom as fair as now when they are not.
Thou art the wonder of the seasons, O
First-born of Beauty. As the Angel near
Gazed on that first of living things which, when
The blast that ruled since Chaos o'er the sere
Leaves of primeval Palms did sweep the plain,
Clung to the new-made sod and would not drive,
So gaze I upon thee amid the reign
Of Winter. And because thou livest, I live.
And art thou happy in thy loneliness?
Oh couldst thou hear the shouting of the floods,
Oh couldst thou know the star among the trees
When—as the herald-voice of breeze on breeze
Proclaims the marriage pageant of the Spring
Advancing from the South—each hurries on
His wedding-garment, and the love-chimes ring
Thro' nuptial valleys! No, serene and lone,
I will not flush thy cheek with joys like these.
Songs for the rosy morning; at gray prime
To hang the head and pray. Thou doest well.
I will not tell thee of the bridal train.
No; let thy Moonlight die before their day
A Nun among the Maidens, thou and they.
Each hath some fond sweet office that doth strike
One of our trembling heartstrings musical.
Is not the hawthorn for the Queen of May?
And cuckoo-flowers for whom the cuckoo's voice
Hails, like an answering sister, to the woods?
Is not the maiden blushing in the rose?
Shall not the babe and buttercup rejoice,
Twins in one meadow? Are not violets all
By name or nature for the breast of Dames!
For them the primrose, pale as star of prime,
For them the wind-flower, trembling to a sigh,
For them the dew stands in the eyes of day
That blink in April on the daisied lea?
Like them they flourish and like them they fade
And live beloved and loving. But for thee—
For such a bevy how art thou arrayed
Flower of the Tempests? What hast thou with them?
Thou shalt be pearl unto a diadem
Which the Heavens jewel. They shall deck the brows
Of joy and wither there. But thou shalt be
A Martyr's garland. Thou who, undismayed,
To thy spring dreams art true amid the snows
As he to better dreams amid the flames.—Athenæum.

THE COUNT MONTE-LEONE: OR, THE SPY IN SOCIETY.[H]

TRANSLATED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM THE FRENCH OF H. DE ST. GEORGES.

Continued from page 70.

V.—THE ENTERTAINMENT.

The name of Count Monte-Leone produced great sensation in the numerous assemblage. The adventures of the Count and the report of his trial had been published in all the Parisian papers, and in the eyes of some he was a lucky criminal, and of others a victim and a martyr to his opinions, whom God alone had preserved. The women especially were interested in the hero of this judicial drama, on account of the exaggerated representations of his personal attractions. Received with general curiosity, which, however, he did not seem to notice, and crossing the rooms with his usual dignified air, Monte-Leone approached the Duchess of Palma and expressed his gratitude for her kindness in including him among her guests. The Duchess recognized the Count politely, and replied to him with a few meaningless phrases. She then left him to meet the young Marquise de Maulear, who came in leaning on the arm of her father, the old Prince. The Prince knew the Neapolitan Ambassador, whom he had often seen with the Duchess. He had been one of the first to visit the Duchess of Palma. A man of intelligence and devotion to pleasure, he thought he did not at all derogate from his dignity by civility to a young and beautiful woman, who bore so nobly the name which was conferred on her by love and hymen.

"Duchess," said the Prince, presenting Aminta, "you have often questioned me about my daughter-in-law, and know what I told you. I am, I confess, proud for you to be able now to judge for yourself." In the interim La Felina had taken in the whole person of Aminta at a single glance, and the result of this rapid examination exerted a strange influence on her. She grew pale, and her voice trembled, as she told the Prince that the praises he had bestowed on the Marquise were far less than the truth.

"The Marquis de Maulear," added she, "is an old acquaintance," and bowing kindly to him, she offered Aminta a seat and then left her, under the influence of an emotion which, actress as she was, she could repress with great difficulty.

The Prince sat by his daughter-in-law, and passing in review before her the distinguished personages of the room, described them with that skeptical wit, that courteous irony, of which the nobles of other days were so completely the masters. He spoke like the Duke d'Ayer of old, that caustic wit, of whom a lady of the court said that she was amazed that his tongue was not torn out twenty times a day, so[Pg 202] full of pointed needles was all he said. Aminta smiled at the pencil sketches of the Prince, or rather at his dagger blow. Had the old man, however, been twenty times as bitter, she would not have found fault with her father-in-law, for she knew he was kind and she was grateful to him—one day we shall know whence these sentiments originated in his mind. The Marquis de Maulear had left his young wife to speak to his numerous acquaintances: and while the Prince for Aminta's amusement flayed alive the various personages who were led before him by their evil fate, Count Monte-Leone, who had seen the Ambassador, sought in vain to pierce the crowd which surrounded him. The Duke was not in the room when Monte-Leone was announced. It was then with surprise and almost with terror that he saw the Count approach him.

"I have not had the honor," said he, "to approach your Excellency since the visit paid me at the Castle Del Uovo. And I am doubly gratified at being able to return it in your hotel amid so splendid a festival."

"Count," said the Duke, seeking to conquer the emotion caused by the unexpected presence of Monte-Leone, "I dared not hope that you would honor me by accepting my invitation; for you cannot be ignorant that an Ambassador represents his king. It is then, in some degree, as if we meet to-day in the palace of his Majesty Fernando King of Naples: and I think I may venture to tell you, in the name of my Sovereign, that if your conduct is a token of reconciliation offered by you to his cause, Fernando IV will acknowledge it as cheerfully as I do now."

Count Monte-Leone appreciated the graceful perfidy of the language of the Duke, and was ready to curse the secret motive which had led him to the Embassy. His eyes, however, turned, almost contrary to his wishes, to the other side of the room, and there he seemed to find something to sustain him. He replied to the Duke as naturally as possible, that in coming to his house, he had remembered only the urbanity of his host and his frankness, being aware that the Duke would never convert a mere visit of pleasure into a political question.

The Duke bit his lips when he heard this evasive answer, and saw that he had met his equal in diplomacy. A young man then approached and passed his arm into that of Monte-Leone's, thus putting an end to this annoying interview. This young man had an eloquent and distingué air, and handsome features, though they were delicate and betokened but feeble health.

"Do you know, my dear Duke," said the new comer to the Ambassador, "that one must have a very perfect character, and be invited to a very charming ball, to come as I do to your house, after the manner we parted eighteen months ago at Naples. Listen!—one goes for health-sake to Naples to pass the winter, to enjoy the Carnival in peace. After one or two intrigues with beautiful women having dark eyes, not, however, comparable with those of the Duchess of Palma, one fine night in the middle of a Pulcinello supper, you send us in place of a dessert a company of black-looking sbirri, who rush like vultures upon us, and rust with dirty hands our Venetian daggers which they wrest from us. Twelve to three, they then separate Taddeo, Von Apsbury and myself, and placing us in rickety carriages, take one of us to prison, another to the frontier, and hurry me on board a miserable little vessel, from which they tumble me like a package of damaged goods on the quai of Marseilles. I had expected to make the tour of Italy."

"Vicompte," said the Duke, with a smile, "the air of Italy was not healthy for you. Very excellent physicians told me your life was unsafe in that country, and that you should leave it as soon as possible. So complain to the faculty, but thank me for having followed their directions."

"Now what mistakes," said the young man, "people make. I have always heard that the climate of Naples was excellent for the chest."

"Well, then, suppose it is," continued d'Harcourt, who wished at any price to avenge himself on the sbirri of his Excellency, in the person of the Duke himself. "It may be the climate exaggerates and sometimes destroys the head, but it is excellent for the heart—a suffering heart—a heart which is attacked is easily cured in Naples. True, the remedies are sometimes priceless, but patients in desperate cases do not hesitate on that account."

"I hope, Count," said the Duke, who would not understand the allusion of the young man to his marriage, "that the climate of Paris suits you better than that of Naples. Besides, the Duc d'Harcourt, your father, that most influential nobleman, will prevent you henceforth from endangering an existence you held too cheaply in Italy."

"Luckily," said D'Harcourt, with a smile, "your Excellency watched over me, and it is no slight honor to have as a physician the minister of police of a kingdom. Excuse me, however," added he to the Duke, "I hear the prelude of Collinet's orchestra, and I have a family duty to fulfil: my sister Mary has promised to dance this contradance with me, and I must humor the whim of a spoiled child."

The wild young man hurried to take his sister's arm, and to get into place with her. Marie d'Harcourt, René's sister, was a charming girl, with blonde hair and a rosy complexion, fair and lithe as a northern elf. The blue veins were visible beneath her transparent skin, so fair that one might often have fancied the blood was about to come gushing through it. The Duke d'Harcourt had lost two of his sons of that terrible pulmonary disease[Pg 203] against which medicine, alas, is powerless. The distress of the father was intense, for two of the scions of this family had been cut off by death; and of the five offshoots from the family tree, but two remained. All his love was therefore centred in René, now his only son, and in Marie, the young girl of whom we have just spoken. From a sentiment of tender respect, the Duke had not permitted his last son to assume the title of those he had lost, and René continued to be called the Vicompte d'Harcourt. There were already apparent sad indications that René would become a prey to the monster which had devoured his two brothers: Marie, a few years younger, gave her father great uneasiness, on account of the excessive delicacy of her constitution and organization. All Paris had participated in the grief of the Duke d'Harcourt; for all Paris respected him. Rich, kind, and benevolent, in an enlightened manner, and within the bounds of reason, rejecting all social Utopias, popular as they might make all who sustained them, the Duke d'Harcourt was a Christian philanthropist, that is to say, a charitable man. Charity is the holiest and purest of earthly virtues, and that in which this patriarch indulged shunned noise and renown. He did not wait until misfortune came to him to soothe it, but sought it out. When this second providence was known to those whom he aided, the Duke imposed secrecy on them as a reward for all he had done. He was, so to say, an impersonation of French honor, and the arbiter of all the differences which arose between the members of the great aristocratic families of France. His word was law, and his decisions sovereign.

The Prince de Maulear had determined to marry his son to the daughter of this noble old man, and had been forced by the Marquis's marriage to abandon the plan. The Duke still remained the friend of the Prince, though he had not unfrequently blamed his somewhat lax principles. Whenever he discovered the Prince in any peccadillo, he used to say, "Well, we must be lenient to youth." Now, the Prince de Maulear was a young man of seventy. The beauty of Aminta, her extreme paleness alone, would have sufficed to fix attention, and created a very revolution in the saloons of the Embassy. The Duchess of Palma did not produce her ordinary effect. The animation she experienced in the beginning of the evening gradually left her, and the sadness under which she had previously suffered, but which she had thrown off during the early hours of the entertainment, began again to take possession of her features and person. One man alone remarked the Duchess, for he had never lost sight of her. Leaning against the door of the boudoir, his eye followed her wherever she went, and appeared to sympathize with all the constraint inflicted on her as mistress of the house. When, however, the Duchess thought she had paid sufficient personal attention, and was satisfied that the pleasures of the evening would be sustained without her, the man who examined her with such care, saw her come towards the boudoir where he was. He went in without being seen by her, and yielding to one of those promptings which a man in his cooler moments would resist, went behind a drapery which covered a door leading into a gallery of pictures, and waited motionless. The Duchess of Palma entered the boudoir, and assuring herself by a glance that she was alone, fell rather than sat on a divan, and suffered two streams of tears to flow from her eyes. "I was strangling," said she. "I would die a thousand deaths. My cruel experiment has succeeded. He loves her yet—I am sure of it. For her sake he came to this entertainment, to which he would not have come for mine. He would have made an excuse of his old difficulties with the Duke, of his political position. I would have believed him, and have sacrificed my wish to see him to propriety and his honor. He never ceases to look at her. He thinks of her alone. He is busied with her alone, yet he has no look, no thought for me." The Duchess began to weep again. Steps were heard in the gallery—the drapery at the door was agitated. "Oh, my God!" said the Duchess, "if met with here, and in this condition, what shall I do and say!" The steps approached. Hurrying then to one of the outlets of the boudoir, she opened it hastily, and went into the garden. The steps the Duchess had heard were those of two persons, who, after having been the rounds of the room, were about to go into the picture-gallery. The two persons were René d'Harcourt and Count Monte-Leone.

"Ah ha!" said the Count, "what the devil is Taddeo doing there against the drapery, there like a jealous Spaniard at a corner of Seville, listening to a serenade given by his rival?"

"True! true!" replied d'Harcourt, "but I think the serenade has been given, for his features express the most malevolent expression."

The emotion of Taddeo was so violent when he heard the words of the Duchess, that he had not strength to leave. He, however, restrained himself, and listened to the raillery of his friends.

"Like yourselves," said he, with a quivering voice, "I was in search of fresh air, for it is fearfully warm."

"Do not get sick here," said d'Harcourt, "for Doctor Matheus is not here to cure you."

"Silence," said Taddeo, changing his expression at once, "how imprudent you are to pronounce his name."

"True," said d'Harcourt, "my tongue is always quicker than my mind. I will however try and make them keep time."

"More than ever," said the Count, "and the poor devils are anxious as possible to be cured!"

"That does not make me uneasy," said d'Harcourt, "our Doctor is a skilful man, a great philosopher, and fully acquainted with the new medicine."

"Ah, that is its very essence," replied the Vicompte, "and I know some wonderful cures of his—so wonderful, indeed, that on the other day I presented him to my father."

"To the Duke?" said Monte-Leone,—"introduce Doctor Matheus to the Duke d'Harcourt?" Then in a low voice he continued, "Why did you present him to the Doctor?"

"For a reason which was important and very dear to my heart. My young sister was suffering; my father, who consulted in behalf of my brothers the most eminent practitioners of Paris, lost all confidence in the faculty when he lost his sons. He did not know whom to consult about his daughter; I spoke to him of Matheus, and told him several wonderful cures he had effected, and the Duke became very anxious to see him."

"He was anxious to do so, and as his house is not far from ours, I in a few minutes was able to introduce him into the patient's room; and would you believe it, a few of the simplest remedies possible exerted a great effect. The agitation of my sister was calmed—her cough arrested—and this evening you see her dancing and waltzing, pretty and gay as possible."

The conversation of the three friends was soon interrupted by the entrance of two other of the personages of our story. The Prince de Maulear entered with the Marquise on his arm, seeking in this retired spot some repose from the fatigues of the ball, and a less heated air than that of the ball-rooms. Aminta leaned heavily on the arm of the Prince when she saw Monte-Leone thus unexpectedly. She had observed him during the evening, and in the course of the winter they had more than once met together. The Count, however, had never referred to their parting at Sorrento. Far from seeking her out, Monte-Leone seemed to avoid her. Satisfied with saluting her respectfully as often as they met, the Count used always to leave her. This reserved and proper conduct was sufficiently explained by the old rivalry of the Marquis de Maulear and the Count. Recollection of this rivalry, without doubt, caused in Aminta's mind the great emotion she always felt when in the presence of Monte-Leone.

"What," said the Prince, when he saw the Count, "are you here, my dear colleague? This chance delights me. My daughter," said he to the young Marquise, "let me introduce to you the Count Monte-Leone, a great traveller, to whom I am indebted for the best chapter of my Italian voyages; all action, I will read it to you one of these days! Ah! but for the Count, I would never have perfected it."

"Monsieur," said Monte-Leone, with a low bow, "I have the honor of the Marquise's acquaintance; and Signora Rovero, her mother, deigned sometimes to receive me at her house before the marriage of the Marquis de Maulear and Madame—"

The Count as he spoke felt as if his heart would burst. The Prince, however, did not perceive it.

"You know my daughter," said the Count, "yes, you have not called on her, you did not seek to see me, who am so glad to see you. This is bad, Count—you will not, however, remain away any longer, and I will not quit you until you promise me a speedy visit."

"I do not know if I should," said the Count, with a hesitation which was not natural to him—and looking timidly at Aminta.

"We shall be happy to receive the Count; but you know, Monsieur, I receive no one without the consent of the Marquis—"

"But the Marquis," said the Prince, "will be delighted to receive so charming a gentleman and erudite a traveller as Count Monte-Leone."

"Indeed! then you know every one," said the old man. "Why then be so ceremonious? People of our rank easily understand each other. Besides, if the invitation of my son is all you need, here he comes to speak for himself."

D'Harcourt and Taddeo, especially the latter, who knew how devotedly Monte-Leone had loved Aminta, participated in the embarrassment of the scene. Aminta trembled. "Ah! you here at last, Monsieur," said the Prince to his son, as he appeared at the door of the boudoir. "You are a lucky fellow to have your father as your wife's cavalier servente, for you have not been near her during the whole evening." The Marquis turned pale, and said with agitation, "Excuse me, sir, but I met some old friends who kept possession of me all the evening."

"Ah!" said the Prince, "apropo of old friends—or old acquaintances, if you will, here is one of yours—the Count Monte-Leone, who wants only for a word from your mouth to renew his acquaintance and visit me."

Without trouble, without agitation, or any apparent effort, he said, "Count Monte-Leone will always be welcome whenever he pleases to visit me."

Aminta cast a glance full of surprise, grief,[Pg 205] and reproach on the Marquis, and a secret voice repeated in her very heart:—"He is no longer jealous, and therefore does not love me."

"Very well," said the Prince to his son, and turning to Monte-Leone, and giving him his hand, he said, "We shall meet again, my dear colleague." He continued, "We will talk of our travels, and especially of the chapter of Ceprano."

Then taking the arm of Aminta, who could scarcely support herself, he returned to the ball-room.

VI.—JOURNAL OF A HEART.

The entertainment continued, and the joyous sounds of the orchestra reached the very extremity of the garden of the Hotel, where the Duchess of Palma had taken refuge to conceal her tears from all observers. She heard a faint noise beneath a neighboring hedge, and looking towards it, saw Taddeo gazing at her with an expression of great grief.

"Yes," said the young man, "Taddeo, who pities and suffers with you because he knows all and suffers all that unappreciated love can inflict on the heart—"

"Your tears," said Taddeo, "and the memory of the past. Better still, yourself. The words you uttered not long ago in the boudoir, and which by chance I heard."

"Signor," replied the Duchess with indignation, "do not attribute to chance what you owe to ignoble curiosity. To watch a woman—to surprise the secrets of her heart, is infamous, and betrays the hospitality extended to you. It shows a want of respect for me, and absence of honor in yourself."

"Signora, my only excuse is my ardent passion, which has lasted in spite of time and contempt. I have no motive for my fault but my sad interest in your suffering, the cruel progress of which I have read on your features since the commencement of the entertainment;—that is all——"

"But, Signor, what have I said? What words have I uttered?" said the Duchess, every feature being instinct with terror.

"Nothing, alas! that my heart has not long been aware of. He that you loved, you love still, and his coldness and insensibility for your devotion, makes you lament his ingratitude and indifference."

The Duchess seemed, as it were, relieved of an enormous burden which oppressed her. She breathed more freely and murmured these words with a burst of gratitude to God who had preserved her—"He knows nothing."

"Taddeo," said she, giving him her hand, "I pardon you, for I am myself guilty, very guilty in still preserving my old sentiments in the face of my new obligations, voluntarily contracted. I have, I am certain, lost the right to reproach you with a fault, which passion induced you to commit, while I commit one far greater. For pity's sake forget what you have heard, and to ask me to explain it would be an offence. Pity me in your heart. Ah! pity me, for I am most unfortunate." Then drying her eyes, she continued, "No more of this—be a friend to me as you promised six months ago, when we came to Paris. On this condition alone you know that I permitted you to see me. Now give me your arm, and let us return to the ball-room, whence, probably, our absence has been remarked." They walked in silence down the alley which led to the ball-room.

Two hours after, all was calm and silent where every thing had been gay and brilliant. The lights were out, and the darkness of night replaced the thousand lamps which a few minutes before were seen to glitter within the palace windows. But one person in all the Hotel of the Duke of Palma was awake. A woman sat alone, in a room of rare elegance, still wearing her ball attire, but with her hair dishevelled and her heart crushed. Her eyes were fixed and dry, and yet red with the tears she had shed. She was in all the brilliancy of youth and beauty, but which was already defaced somewhat, by the iron claws of sorrow, which by sleepless nights and the ravages of jealousy seemed resolved yet more to lacerate her. With her head resting on her hands, beautiful and touching as Canova's Magdalen, she looked with sorrow over the papers which lay strewn on a rich ebony desk before her. A lamp, the upper portion of which was shrouded in blue tulle, cast a pale and sad light over her brow. Her fine white hand rested on the papers which she seemed afraid to touch. "No," said she, "it is impossible; all that these contain are but falsehoods. No, this journal of my heart, written by myself, day by day, cannot be a romance created by the imagination in its delirium. No! all I wrote there was true. I felt the joys and bitternesses, yet it now seems to me a dream. A dream! can it be a dream?"

Taking up the papers convulsively she read as follows:—"It is he. I have seen him again and free. I thought that he, like myself, had contracted a life-long obligation. Is this joy or grief? The ties he was about to form, the ties the mere thought of which caused me a terrible anguish, were imposed on me by myself. Oh my God! what have I done? What perfidious demon inspired me when I yielded to another than to him the right to love me? When I promised a love I knew could be given to no other than to him? Why on the day of that fatal marriage did I see him only when I was about to leave the church? I would have broken off had I stood at the foot of the altar—I would have told him who was about to give me his name—ask me not to perjure myself! do not ask me to pledge you a faith I cannot keep! my heart, my soul, my love are his. I thought, alas! because he was not free[Pg 206] that I too might cease to be. I fancied my agony to be power, my spite to be courage. When, however, I saw him pale and sombre, leaning against the door of the temple, I felt the coldness of death take possession of me, and I doubted long after that sad day, if I had seen a shadow, if some hallucinations of my senses had not evoked a phantom of my vanished love, to inspire me with eternal regret. Yet HE it was! HE it was! and when at the risk of my very life I would have flown towards that man, I was forced to follow another." The poor woman paused; for a mist obscured her sight, a distillation of burning tears. She resumed her task:—"I am a Duchess but of what value is that vain title which I sought, as an ægis against memory, to me? Have I found it such? For a long time, I thought so. I should, however, never have seen him again. I should have passed no happy days near him, and have been ignorant of the delirium and intoxication of his presence, which I never can forget. I had been the wife of the Duke of Palma six months, when a mission of the King of Naples forced him to leave me at a villa on the Lago di Como, while he went in a foreign country to discharge the duties his monarch had imposed on him. I scarcely dared to confess to myself, in spite of the kindness of the Duke, how I was delighted during his absence, for it gave me a liberty of mind and thought which was absolutely necessary to my heart. Resolved to discharge all my duties, I lived, or rather vegetated, in this existence, so unoccupied and objectless as all marriages contracted without love must be. Amid, however, the dead calm of a marriage contracted without love, there glittered sometimes a burst of passion repressed, but alas! not stifled. Dark passions filled my bosom, and I felt the poison of regret. I found myself often longing for my independence, which, however, would not have contributed to my happiness, but would at least have permitted me to indulge in my secret sorrow. My temporary solitude, therefore, became precious to me, for I was about to abandon myself to sadness without annoying any one, and without exciting a curiosity which it was impossible for me to satisfy. When one evening I had been wandering alone on the banks of the lake, I was terrified by a terrible scene on the water. At a great distance a man made every effort to approach the shore—for his boat was evidently sinking beneath him. Some opening, beyond doubt, permitted the water to penetrate, and his danger became every moment more imminent. I was too far from the villa to send him any assistance, and as a secret presentiment was joined to the horror and pity caused by the spectacle, I felt the greatest anxiety about the stranger. The night was near, and the sky became darker every moment. By the flashes of lights here and there, I saw the bark almost sinking, and ere long, it was entirely gone—and the tranquil waves of the lake, calm as they are wont to be, rolled over it. My strength deserted me, and almost in a fainting condition, I fell on the strand. I did not absolutely lose consciousness; for far in the distance I heard the sound of sudden blows on the water, for which at the time I could not account. The noise approached, and grew every moment more distinct. I then heard the sound, as it were, of a body falling on the sand, accompanied by a painful cry. I heard no more. Soon I saw the light of the torches of my servants, who being uneasy, had come to look for me. They found me, and also a half inanimate body, dripping with water. It was doubtless the person whose boat had foundered in the water, and I ordered him to be taken to the villa and carefully attended to. It was late, and I returned. A few hours had passed since the event, and I was sitting alone at the piano. Fancy bore me back to my last appearance at San-Carlo, where a mad and infatuated public had bade me so enthusiastic an adieu. While all that crowd had eyes, for him alone I wished to be beautiful—for him alone to be worthy of the admiration I excited. Dreaming this, my fingers run over the keys, and joining my voice to the instrument, I sang almost unconsciously that touching air in which I had been so much applauded. My song was at first low and half-whispered, but gradually increased in power. I thought I spoke to him, and that his eyes were fixed on mine. At last I paused, pale with surprise, joy and terror. In the glass before me I saw Count Monte-Leone."

The memory of this event was so distinct and exciting, that the Duchess paused and looked around for the apparition which had caused her such keen emotion. Then, as if she delighted to place the knife in the wound, she took up the manuscript, and continued:—

"'Excuse me, Madame,' said the Count, 'for having thus introduced myself into your house; but I am come to thank you for the cares I have received in your name.'

"'You—you here?' said I, yet doubting my eyes. 'Is it a dream or vision? Speak, speak once more, that, I may be sure I do not dream.'

"'Felina,' said he, in a tone full of melancholy, 'I know not why our fate should thus constantly bring us together. But one might think, that still faithful to your old oath, you continue the providence you used to be to me. When a few months since, after the wreck of all my hopes of happiness, after having been misconceived by those for whom I had done so much, when sad and desperate, I cursed my egotistical and cold career, you appeared to me in the Church of Ferentino and cast on me, in the face of your marriage vows, one of those deep-loving looks which cheer the heart and attach it to life. And when on the lake, exhausted with fatigue and ready to yield under the struggle necessary to avert my threatened fate, you again came to my relief. You see, then,' continued he, smiling sadly, 'that in becoming the good angel of the Duke of Palma, you do not cease to be mine.'[Pg 207]

"Never had the Count spoken thus to me. He had always been cold, and seemed most unwillingly to acknowledge the services I had rendered him. I had never received an affectionate word from his mouth before. He saw the trouble he gave me, and taking my hand, said, with a voice full of sensibility, 'Are you happy?' At this question, it seemed as if my heart would break, and I burst into tears.

"'Do not question me,' said I. 'Let me keep the cause of those tears a secret, for you can neither dry up nor understand them. Tell me though about yourself, said I. Tell me of your marriage.'

"This word restored me to my sang-froid. I became more calm, and questioned him. The Count told me all.

"For many months, he had travelled and returned to Europe to arrange some pecuniary matters previous to his return to France, where he purposed to remain. Passing by la Tremezzina, he learned, indirectly, that certain malevolent reports had been circulated in relation to him by the brothers of the powerful association, of which he had been the chief. A venta was to meet on the opposite shore of Lake Como. Taking a rude costume—he had gone thither, for the purpose of protesting against the perfidious insinuations of his enemies. Afraid, however, of being watched by some agent of his enemies, he resolved to cross the lake alone and at night. Thus he became so near being lost. The Count wished to leave me that night, for he was aware of the absence of the Duke of Palma, and was afraid of compromising me. I, however, retained him for several days in the villa, for the purpose of throwing off the vigilance of his enemies. Alas! how have I regretted those days, the only happy ones of my life. How rapidly they passed away! The Count knew the mystery I wished to hide from him. He read it in my soul, the only thought of which he long had been. He knew why I had married, what tears and sorrow I had known, and what anguish it had caused me. Touched by this vast sacrifice, understanding the extent of my love, I saw the ice of his heart gradually begin to melt. But as his heart warmed to mine, a secret terror took possession of me. Tasting all the joy of seeing arise in the heart of the Count, sentiments which, when I was free I could not have heard without pride and satisfaction, I trembled at the idea of being able to listen to them only with crime. Soon it was I who besought the Count to fly—to leave me—to see me no more. Strange, however, is the human heart; the passion of Monte-Leone seemed to feed on my opposition. He forgot the past, he could not realize it to have existed.

"Sitting by my side during the long days, beneath the flowery bowers of the villa, the Count, as he said, saw through the darkness in which he had been enveloped—his eyes recovered their vision, and at last I appeared to him, for the first time, the most charming, the most adorable of women. Never was there a more eloquent tenderness than his—and to me who lived for him alone—whose image was ever before me, who had loved him in spite of his coldness and indifference, almost his contempt, to me he used this language of entreaty.... Yet he did so to a woman who loved him. A month passed in this cruel contest of love and duty. The contest was not equal, and passion triumphed. The Count had left the villa, but was concealed in the vicinity, and I saw him every day become more tender and affectionate. One must have suffered as I have to understand the intoxication of my happiness. To be loved by him had never seemed possible; and to possess this life-dream, to read in his looks a passion I alone had experienced hitherto, was a veil, thin indeed, but this prevented me from discerning how great was my fault. If it did become known to me, I loved it; for in my delirium I thought that I gave to this man a heart which belonged to him, and a person of which, in defiance of his rights, another was possessed. The other though, whom I doubly injured by this thought, had given me truly, loyally, and nobly, his heart, his rank, his name. So completely, however, was I led astray, that I censured the Duke for this very generosity. Sometimes, however, my life of love had its sorrows. The Count would be sad, and in his moments of melancholy, forgot my presence, and spoke slightingly on the volatility of women and of their caprices. I used to look at him with surprise, and seek to discover his secret thoughts. One day it was revealed to me.

"'When women are young,' said he, 'they suffer themselves to be led away by brilliant exterior, and by that studied gallantry of which the French make such a display.' A few words full of venom escaped him involuntarily in relation to a rival that she whom he had loved preferred to him. So shocked was I, that I asked him, if ill-humor at his repulse alone had led him to my feet. Without knowing how he had done so, the Count saw he had wounded me, and by increased care and tenderness lulled a suspicion which ultimately was to rise in all its power and agony.

"One day, we were to separate. The Count was obliged to go to Naples, where he was impatiently waited for. My despair at this intelligence was terrible. How could I leave this sweet happiness which had grown around me in two months! It seemed above my power and ability. Nothing seemed to influence the Count. I knew him well, and was aware that he never yielded. I soon ceased to contend, and he left me—not, however, without the tenderest oaths of constancy. 'We will soon meet again,' he remarked, 'and[Pg 208] in Paris: in that vast city where mystery is so easy, and where secret love finds an impenetrable shelter, we will reside—you still as beautiful, I devoted as ever.'"

"Vain promises," said La Felina, crushing the papers in her hands. "I wished to read these pages once more. I wrote them after he had gone, and they are the history of my fleeting happiness. I wished to be satisfied that I had been happy. I doubt it sometimes, for during the three months the Count has been here, I see him every day resume more and more his old coldness to me. Formerly, I could reproach myself with nothing. I had betrayed no one; and he, in his disdain, had violated no promise. Now, though, he has created eternal remorse and regret. He has revived in my heart a flame which was nearly out—yet has nothing but indifference and contempt for me. He forgets, though, how dangerous it is to offend an Italian woman. He has forgotten what he read in my letter to his friend: 'Had I been to the Count but an ordinary woman, the charms of whom would have fixed him for a time, but whom he would repudiate as he has his other conquests, I would have killed him.'"

VII.—DOCTOR MATHEUS.

At the time we write of, there was in la rue Babylonne, near the faubourg Saint-Germain, an old house, the owner of which was really to be pitied. In consequence of a kind of fate which overhung this house, no room had been occupied for many years, and the persons who went thither in search of room, terrified at their sombre air, heard, subsequently, such stories of what had happened within its walls, took good care not to take up their abode there, even if they had given the denier-à-Dieu, an important matter in Paris, and a kind of bargain between the lodger and landlord, made in the presence of the porter, who is the notary, witness, and depository of the contract. If, however, any quiet family, led astray by the retirement of the house, established themselves in it, the servants soon heard such stories from their neighbors in No. 15, that they lived in perpetual terror—madame grew pale, and as often as monsieur sang louder than usual, or came in without noise, had nervous attacks. The unfortunate lodgers, menaced by jaundice or some other bilious complaint, in consequence of the repeated emotions to which they were subjected, were anxious always to go, even under the penalty of indemnifying the landlord. The latter saw himself again forced to submit to the reign of solitude in the old halls, which were gilt and painted à la Louis XV., and saw the mildew and dust again rest on the windows and cells, as soon as the fires ceased to burn; not even the presence of a trunk, belonging to a chance sojourner in this desert isle, relieved the landlord from apprehensions of the recurrence of his old calamity. The Crusoe of this desert island had declared that he had rather pay the lodging three, six, or nine-fold, than live in such proximity with the miserable ideas which the house suggested. True, the Crusoe was an Englishman, predisposed to the spleen, and the sadness of his abode would soon have led him to augment by a new scene the dramas which had already happened in this house. The landlord, afraid that he would do so, hurried to conclude matters as soon as possible with the islander.

A man had hung himself there for love. This was a horrid story, but it was not the whole drama. Three years after, two very old men, who were very rich, and said to be retired merchants, were found stifled beneath their mattress, and the criminal was never found out. The people of the quartier, however, knew all about it, and said who was the murderer. They maintained it was the old suicide, the shadow of whom was ill at ease, and had a mortal aversion to any one who disagreed with him about a suitable and pleasant residence.

Yet for some time No. 13 had looked like all the other houses in the vicinity. People went in and came out, just as if it had been the domicile of no ghost. The knocker on the door was often heard, and when the porter opened his door, a little flower-garden was seen, with various horticultural treasures, expanding beneath the spring sun.

At length a lodger was found, a very godsend to No. 13, whose lofty reason was superior to all the fables told of the house, and, by his presence defended it from the calumny which had been circulated about it; not by words but deeds, for he lived there, and was neither hung nor stifled, like the old merchants, who had several very evil disposed nephews, and who, to say the least, assisted the man that was hung in procuring the rich inheritance for them. This house had a large ground-floor, and many handsome rooms on the first story. The second story was very expensive, having previously been the studio of a painter, but which had been appropriated by the new lodger to an object which we will describe by and by. We will not attempt a description of this new lodger, but will introduce to our readers one more competent to do it. This person is Mlle. Celestine Crepineau, an old maid between thirty-seven and forty-nine years of age. She was tall and thin, and had all her life rejoiced at this, for she had a form three fingers in diameter. True, a broomstick can be grasped between the thumb and index finger, and yet is not very graceful. Let not any one think, though, in spite of this infantine vanity, that Mlle. Crepineau was of those virgins whom the Bible condemns as foolish about their beauty. She was a prudent honest-minded girl, the heart of whom if it ever spoke, did so in such low terms, that no one ever heard it. Mademoiselle Celestine's virtue[Pg 209] was a proverb. Mothers in all that part of the town spoke of her as a model of prudence, and fathers pointed her out to their sons as a warning against the passions of youth. Without father or mother, from her very childhood Mlle. Crepeneau had no protector but her god-father, an old lawyer, who owned No. 13 of Babylonne-street. The worthy lawyer had provided for the youth of Mlle. Celestine, and had long intrusted her with the control of his kitchen: discovering, however, how little talent his god-daughter had for the art of Cussy and Brillot-Savarin, and wishing to provide an honorable and comfortable home for her, he removed her from the charge of her personal to that of his real property. We will see how fully Mlle. Celestine justified the esteem of her god-father: with what martial courage she took possession of this kingdom of shadows; and how, after sprinkling the whole house with holy water and hung a bough of a blessed tree, she had declared that this asylum, thus purified, henceforth would be unapproachable to the man who had been hung.

The fact is, for three years, neither the suicide nor any one else had violated this sanctuary of virtue. But Mlle. Celestine was not only a virtuous and sensible woman, but a woman of eloquence. Nothing could be more attractive than the harangues she made use of to induce lodgers to occupy her rooms. Honey flowed from her mouth, and many persons were led away by the siren's song. But generally they soon became terrified and fled from the terrors which besieged them. Mlle. Celestine Crepeneau therefore could not praise her new lodger too highly. "What a charming man," said she to her neighbors in 11 and 51, the porters of which looked on her as an oracle. "Doctor Matheus is an angel, pure as those of Paradise. God forgive me for saying so, for I think he is handsomer than they, with his magnificent whiskers and moustache. I do not see why angels do not wear them! I am sure they are very becoming. Besides, he is so kind to other people. Only the other day he wished to set Tamburin's leg, which some Jacobin had broken." In Mlle. Crepeneau's mind, a Jacobin was capable of any thing. "And what a magnificent room he has! how beautiful: all full of noble skeletons, Jacobins' heads, and books enough to fill all the Place Louis XV. He has also a fine practice, and patients of every kind coming on horseback, in carriages, on foot, and in wooden shoes. He refuses no one, and cures every body—even Tamburin. The poor animal is very fond of him, never barking when he passes, but wagging his tail as if he knew his physician. I alone attend to Doctor Matheus," continued Mlle. Crepeneau, "and I flatter myself he is well waited on. He has a great deal of trouble, too, especially on his consultation days. One would think then all Paris met at his house. He is a brave man, and is not afraid of ghosts! Yet he said the other day, 'I have killed so many people that one more would run me mad.'"

Yet while Mlle. Crepineau was thus prodigal of her praises, in front of No. 13, her lodger, as she called him, was in the third story of the house, and was shut up in his room engaged in the strangest manner. The studio had preserved nothing of its original destination but its name. Instead of pictures, plaster casts, statuettes, and manikins, the table was covered with manuscripts, books, pamphlets, and loose papers; on this battle-field, where science, art and politics seemed to contend together, stood a noble Japan vase from which arose a noble bouquet of white camelias—above this hung the portrait of a protestant preacher.

Doctor Matheus, as Mlle. Celestine had said, was young and handsome. He had luxuriant fair hair, hanging in clusters around his face and falling on his shoulders, so as to give a seraphic air to his face, very well calculated to touch the heart of pious Celestine. In his mild blue eyes, however, there was an expression of will, decision and daring which strangely contrasted with the rest of his face. The Doctor was tall and elegantly formed, and wore at home the costume yet popular at Leipsig, Gottingen and Heidelberg, a doublet of velvet and a kind of cap surmounted by a plume. He had suppressed the plume. This is exactly the costume of Karl de Moor in Schiller's robber; and in 1847 we saw the pupils of those venerable universities strolling through the streets of the German capitals in this very theatrical costume, precisely that of Wilhelm Meister's actors when they met Mignon on the Ingolstadt road just after their unfortunate representation of Hamlet. The Doctor, we have said, was strangely engaged. He leaned over a vast chart of Europe, extended before him like a body waiting for the knife of the anatomist. His eyes were expanded, his brow flushed, and from time to time he stuck black pins into this chart, and whenever he did so consulted the manuscripts which he held in his hand. When he had inserted the last pin, he arose, and with a cry of joy looked around like a conqueror; as great men are wont to survey their fields of triumphs. "Europe is ours," said he, "and the world is Europe's." The vaccine of Carbonarism has taken, and courses from vein to vein, to the very noblest portion of the social body. It has reached and taken possession of the heart. The old man is dead and a new being is about to be born. Better still, Lazarus, regenerated, is about to burst from the tomb.

Afraid to yield to a false hope, trembling lest he should be deceived in his calculations, the Doctor leaned again over his chart, and began to compute the black pins which, like a mourning cloak, covered the map of Europe. And indeed the terrible monster he had named was a pall thrown over the happiness of the people of the world. The idealists and ambitious men who sought to extend it were the murderers of all prosperity. A Gothic clock which leaned against the wall struck eleven.[Pg 210] The features of the Doctor at once changed their expression, and infinite grief replaced the enthusiasm which pervaded them. He hurried to a low window of his cabinet, and pushing aside the curtain, looked anxiously into a garden which was behind the house he dwelt in, and from which he was separated only by the parterre of which we have spoken before. This garden belonged to a magnificent hotel in the street of Verennes. A large portal decked with flower vases led to rooms on the ground-floor. This door was just then opened and a beautiful girl hurried past, when the Doctor went to the window of his cabinet. The young girl walked down an alley well lighted; she seemed to seek for the generous heat of the sun, and turned toward it like a true Heliotrope. She seemed to take no care of her complexion, for her head was scarcely covered by a straw-hat which could not avert the heat. A thin dress of embroidered muslin with short sleeves displayed her arms, and a blue sash surrounded her thin and delicate form. She gathered a few flowers, and cut away a few bad branches of the rose-trees with an elegant English pruning-knife. Then after having passed two or three times up and down the alley in front of the portal, she put her hand to her brow as if to make a visor to shield her eyes from the burning rays of the sun. Just in front of her was the window—the curtain of which Doctor Matheus had drawn aside, and there he stood more beautiful and radiant than ever. The young girl blushed slightly and looked hastily away, for the sun probably appeared too bright just then. The Doctor seemed fascinated by what he had seen, and we cannot say how long his ecstasy continued. At last a well-known voice exclaimed on the other side of the door, which was closed even to Mlle. Celestine Crepineau, "Doctor—you are wanted in the parlor. A gentleman—a patient. He has given me his card to bring you."

"Yet," said the inquisitive porteress.—"Monsieur may wish to know the name in advance."

"My God!" said Mlle. Celestine, terrified at the Doctor's manner. "What is the matter with my new lodger? Why will he not let me enter his cabinet? Perhaps though he is cutting up some human body, and has respect for my sex."

The Doctor left his room, and locked the door carefully; putting the key in his pocket, he went down. When he entered the room he was amazed to see who was waiting for him.

The Duke said, "My visit should not surprise you, for I came, after all, only to thank you for your services to my dear Marie."

"Duke," said Doctor Matheus, "your benevolent reception, when I had the honor to be presented to you, has converted a duty into a pleasure. The natural interest," added he, with profound emotion, "with which your daughter inspires all who see her, would make me most proud of her cure."

"Doctor," said the Duke, looking most earnestly at the physician, "you inspire me with a confidence I have had in none of your brethren. Your reply, therefore, to my question, I shall look on as a sentence. Do not fear to be frank, Doctor, for I am prepared for every misfortune; already crushed by my sufferings, my heart looks forward to no earthly happiness. The lives of my two surviving children are the objects of my own life, but uncertainty is too much for me. Reply therefore, I beg you, sincerely to me whether the life of my child is in danger."

"Duke," said Doctor Matheus, "the hand of God is more powerful than that of science.—He often strikes down the strong, and preserves the weak, so that none here can tell when to expect his blows. I can, however, assure you on my honor, that your daughter, delicate as she is, at this time has not even a germ of the terrible malady which has ravaged your hearth. This germ is always in the blood of members of the same family. Art establishes this, though it can provide no remedy.—This secret enemy, however," said the physician, with a kind of pride, "before which all known remedies are powerless, I can perhaps oppose and conquer."

"Tell me, Doctor, tell me!" said the Duke, clasping the Doctor's hands, "save my child, grant her life, and my fortune is yours."

"Duke," said Matheus, "if I had the honor of a better acquaintance with you, I would not listen to such language as you have used.—Gold has little value in my eyes, and reputation no more, for I do not place my hopes for the future in my profession. Since, however, study has revealed to me the art of assisting those who suffer, and of saving those who are in danger, I would esteem it a crime not to do so; and I promise this art shall be employed in the cure of Mlle. d'Harcourt.

"No, Duke; I will use it in your presence. I will also own that I have already made use of it, though but slightly, in the case of Mlle. d'Harcourt; what I have done, satisfies me that I may hope to see her completely restored."

"It is true;" said the Duke. "The interview and the simple remedies you prescribed, have sufficed to soothe the sufferings of my daughter. Ah! Monsieur," added he, clasping the Doctor's hand kindly, "how can I discharge my obligations towards you?"

"By granting me a boon, invaluable to me, and which all Paris will envy, and of which I[Pg 211] know you are prodigal indeed, your esteem—the respect of the Duke d'Harcourt—the most honorable and virtuous of men. You see, Monsieur, I place a great value on my consultations; and few persons have received so noble a recompense from you."

"Doctor," said the Duke d'Harcourt, with a smile, "in that case you are already paid; for I know all that you do in Paris, and especially in this neighborhood. I know that want meets here with a better reception than opulence, and that you look on all sufferers as having an equal claim on your attention. You must be aware, that knowing this I have already given you all you ask."

"Well, then," said the Doctor, "let me continue to have your respect, and we shall be equal."

"Sir, there are in the reception-room an English Milord, and two miserable creatures waiting to see you."

"One is an Auvergnat, very badly dressed, with a bandage over his eye, who has already been here once or twice."

"The other is a peasant from the environs, who has a handkerchief over his face as if he enjoyed a fluxion."

"I will go," said the Duke, "for your visitors are impatient, and sorrow should not wait. I will give place to Milord."

"Very well," said the Duke, "the poor before the rich, I expected that." Bowing kindly to the Doctor, the old nobleman left.

As he passed through the reception room, he saw the Doctor's visitors, each of whom looked towards him. The Milord rushed towards a window, which luckily was closed. The other two were introduced to the Doctor's room. No sooner were they there, than the one threw off his handkerchief, and the Auvergnat his bandage. The Doctor gave them his hand and exclaimed, "Monte-Leone! Taddeo."

"And here, too, am I," said the Milord, entering the room and throwing aside his red wig and burning whiskers.

"D'Harcourt, too"—said the Doctor, hurrying to meet the new comer—and then closing the curtains, "Here we all are," said he.

"Yes, dear Von Apsbury," said the Count, embracing him. "The Pulcinelli of the Etruscan villa are again united."

Dr. Franklin's father had seventeen children. He was the fifteenth. He says in his autobiography, that his father died at the age of eighty-nine, and his mother at the age of eighty-five, and that neither were ever known to have any sickness except that of which they died.

FOOTNOTES:

[H] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by Stringer & Townsend, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-York.

From Fraser's Magazine.

LIFE AT A WATERING PLACE.

THE DOG OF ALCIBIADES.

BY C. ASTOR BRISTED.

We left Tom Edwards mysteriously swallowed up, like a stage ghost down a trap-door. And do you know, reader, I am very near leaving him so for good and all, and suspending these sketches indefinitely,—yea, even to the time of the Mississippi dividends, or any other period beyond the Greek Calends that your imagination can conjure up. For the wise men—and the wise women, too—of Gotham are wroth with me, and one says that I am writing on purpose to libel this man or puff that woman, and another charges me with sketching my own life in Fraser, for self-glorification, and a third holds up the last number of Pendennis at me and says, "If you could write like that, there would be some excuse for you, but you won't as long as you live." "Alas, no!" said I, and was just going to burn my unfinished papers, and vow that I would never again turn aside from my old craft of reviewing. But then came reflection in the shape of a bottle of true Dutch courage—genuine Knickerbocker Madeira—and said, "Why should you be responsible for resemblances you never meant, if people will insist on finding them? Consider how prone readers, and still more hearers who take their reading at second-hand, are to suppose that the author, be he great or small, must have represented himself in some one of his personages." True enough, Mr. Bottle; for instance, any one of our fashionables will tell you that "our spirituel and accomplished friend" (as Slingsby calls him), M. Le Vicomte Vincent Le Roi, is the hero of his thrilling romance, Le Chevalier Bazalion—why they should, or what possible resemblance they can find between the real man in New-York, and the ideal one in the novel, it passeth my poor understanding to discover. Bazalion is a stalwart six-footer, who goes about knocking people's brains out, scaling inaccessible precipices, defending castles single-handed against a regiment or two, and, by way of relaxation after this hard work, victimizing all the fair dames and blooming damsels that come in his way—breaking the hearts of all the women when he has broken the heads of all the men. Le Roi is a nice gentlemanly man, of the ordinary size, who sings prettily and talks well, and makes himself generally agreeable, and not at all dangerous in society—much the more Christian and laudable occupation, it seems to me. If ever he does bore you, it is with his long stories, not with a long pike as Bazalion used to do. Be the absurdity, then, on the head of him who makes it; Qui vult decipi decipiatur: if any one chooses to think that I am bodied forth under the character of Harry Benson, and am, in consequence, a handsome young man, who can do a little of every thing instead of——but never mind what; your actor has not yet sufficient standing to come down before[Pg 212] the footlights, and have his little bit of private chaff with the audience. Only this will I say, so help me N. P. Willis, I mean to go on with these sketches till they are finished, provided always that Fraser will take them so long and that you continue to read them, or fall into a sweet and soothing slumber over them, as the case may be. For if we are all to shut up shop until we can write as well as Mr. Titmarsh, there will be too extensive a bankruptcy of literary establishments.

Before Ashburner could form any conjecture to account for the evanishment of Edwards—indeed before he could altogether realize it to himself—the little man's head reappeared above the ground, though there were no signs of his horse; and at the same time Benson began to ride round the scene of the catastrophe, at an easy canter, laughing immoderately. The Englishman shook up his brute into the best gallop he could get out of him, and a few more strides brought him near enough to see the true state of things. There was a marsh at no great distance, which rendered the grass in the immediate vicinity moist and sloppy, and just in this particular spot the action of the water had caved away a hole precisely large enough to receive a horse and rider—it could hardly have made a more accurate grave had they been measured for it—and so marked by a slight elevation in front, that it was ten to one any person riding over the ground at such a rate, and unacquainted with the position of this trap, but must fall headlong into it, as Edwards had done. There was some reason to suspect that our friend Harry, who was an habitual rider, and knew all the environs of Oldport pretty well, and was fonder of short cuts and going over grass than most American horsemen are, had not been altogether ignorant of the existence of the pitfall; it looked very much as if he had led Edwards, who was no particular friend of his, purposely into it: but if such was the case, he kept his own counsel. When the fallen man and mare had scrambled out of the hole, which they did before Benson had offered to help them, or Ashburner had time to be of any assistance, it appeared that she had sprained her off foreankle, and he his nigh wrist. But they were close to the main road; by good luck a boy was found to conduct the animal home, and by a still greater piece of good luck the Robinsons' carriage happened to be coming along just then, so the little man, who did not take up much room, was popped into it, and as much pitied and mourned over by the lady occupants as was père Guilleri in the French song. And, to do him justice, even without this consolation, he had taken his mishap very quietly from the first, as soon as he found himself not injured in any vital, i. e. dancing part.

Having finished their road at a more leisurely pace, our two horsemen arrived at the glen after most of the company were assembled there. And as the place was one of general resort, they noticed traces of other parties, people of the Simpson class, hail-fellow-well-met men, who didn't dance but took it out in drinking, and who in their intercourse with the other sex, betrayed more vulgar familiarity and less refined indecency than characterized the men and boys of White, Edwards, Robinson, and Co.'s set. But of these it may be supposed that the set took no heed. There was some really pretty scenery about the glen, but they took no heed of that either—to be sure, most of them had seen it at least once before. They had gone straight to the largest parlor of the house, and led, as usual, by the indefatigable Edwards, had begun their tricks with the chairs. Booted and spurred as he was, and with his arm in a sling, the ever-ready youth had already arranged the German cotillion, taking the head himself, and constituting Sumner his second in command. Benson was left out of this dance for coming too late, one of the ladies told him; but he did not find the punishment very severe, as he rather preferred walking with Ashburner, and showing him the adjacent woods. As they passed out through several specimens of the Simpson species, who were smoking and lounging around the door, Ashburner nearly ran over a very pretty young woman who was coming up the steps. She was rather rustically, but not unbecomingly dressed, and altogether so fresh and rosy that it was a treat to see her after the fine town ladies, even the youngest of whom were beginning to look faded and jaded from the dissipation of the season. But when she opened her mouth in reply to Benson's affable salutation, it was like the girl in the fairy tale dropping toads and adders, so nasal, harsh, and inharmonious was the tone in which she spoke.

"That's Mrs. Simpson," said Harry, as they went on, "the Bird's wife. Pretty little woman: what a pity she has that vulgar accent! She belongs to New England originally; one finds many such girls here, every way charming until they begin to talk. But I suppose you saw no difference between her and any of us. In your ears we all speak with a barbarous accent—at least you feel bound to think so."

"What do you think yourself? You have known a good many of my countrymen, and heard them talk, and are able to make the comparison. Do you, or do you not, find a difference?"

"To say the truth, I do; it is a thing I never think seriously of denying, for it seems to me neither singular nor to be ashamed of. You can tell an Irishman from a Londoner by his accent; so you can a Scotchman; or a Yorkshireman for that matter: why should you not be able to tell an American? The error of your countrymen consists in attributing to all our people the nasal twang, which is almost peculiar to one section of the country. If I were asked the peculiar characteristic of a New-Yorker's speech, I should say monotone.[Pg 213] Notice any one of our young men—you will find his conversational voice pitched in the same key. Sumner goes on at the same uniform growl, Edwards in an unvaried buzz. When I first landed in England, I was struck with the much greater variety of tone one hears in ordinary conversation. Your women, especially, seemed to me always just going to sing. And I fancied the address of the men affected—just as, very likely, this monotone of ours seems affected to you."

"What I remark most is a hardness and dryness of voice, as if the extremes of climate here had an injurious effect on the vocal organs."

"Perhaps they do; and yet I think you will find a better average of singers, male and female, in our society than in yours, notwithstanding our fashionables are so engrossed by dancing. Holla! here's Harrison. How are you, old fellow? and how are the Texas Inconvertibles?"

It was indeed the broker, wandering moodily alone. What had he in common with the rest of the company—the fops and flirts, the dancing men and dancing women? The males all snubbed and despised him, from tall White down to little Robinson; the women were hardly conscious of his existence. He knew, too, that he could thrash any man there in a fair stand-up fight, or buy out any three of them, ay, or talk any of them down in the society of sensible and learned people; and this very consciousness of superiority only served to embitter his position the more. There were other sets, doubtless, who would have welcomed him gladly, but either they were not sufficiently to his taste to attract him, or he was in no mood to receive consolation from their sympathy. So he had wandered alone, untouched by the charming scenery about him—a man whom nobody cared for; and when Benson addressed him genially, and in an exuberance of spirits threw his arm over the other's neck as they walked side by side, the broker's heart seemed to expand towards the man who had shown him even this slight profession of kindness, his intelligent eyes lighted up, and he began to talk out cheerfully and unassumingly all that was in him.

Harrison's own narrative of his personal prowess, as well as the qualified panegyric pronounced upon him by Benson, had led Ashburner to expect to find in him a manly person with some turn for athletic sports and good living, but no particular intellectual endowments beyond such as his business demanded. He was, therefore, not a little astonished at (inasmuch as he was altogether unprepared for) the variety of knowledge and the extent of mental cultivation which the broker displayed as their conversation went on. They talked of the hills and valleys, and ravines and water-courses around them, and Harrison compared this place with others in a way that showed a ready observer of the beauties of nature. They talked of Italy, and Harrison had at his fingers' ends the principal palaces in every city, and the best pictures in every palace. They talked of Greece, and Harrison quoted Plato. They talked of England and France, and Harrison displayed a familiar acquaintance, not merely with the statistics of the two countries, but also with the habits and characteristics of their people. Finally, they talked on the puzzling topic of American society—puzzling in its transition state and its singular contrasts—and, whether the broker's views were correct or not, they were any thing but commonplace or conventional.

"Our fashionable society has been all a mistake hitherto," said Harry (Ashburner could not well make out whether there was a spice of irony in his observation); "Mrs. Benson and some others are going to reform it indifferently. The women thus far have been lost sight of after marriage, and have left the field to the young girls. Now they are beginning to wake up to their rights and privileges."

"They will not remedy any of the present evils in that way," answered Harrison, apparently addressing himself to Ashburner, but he seemed to be talking at Benson and through him at Benson's wife, or his own, or both of them. "Our theory and practice was that a young girl should enjoy herself in all freedom; that her age and condition were those of pleasure and frolic—of dissipation, if you will—that after her marriage she, comparatively speaking, retired from the world, not through any conventional rule or imaginary standard of propriety, but of her own free will, and in the natural course of things; because the cares of maternity and her household gave her sufficient employment at home. A woman who takes a proper interest in her family gives them the first place in her thoughts, and is always ready to talk about them. Now these domestic details are the greatest possible bore to a mere fashionable casual drawing-room acquaintance. Hence you see that the French, whose chief aim is to talk well in a drawing-room or an opera box, utterly detest and unmercifully ridicule every thing connected with domesticity or home life. On the other hand, if a married woman never talks of these things or lets you think of them, she does not take a proper interest in her family. No, the fault of youth is with the other sex. There are too few men about, and too many boys. And the more married belles there are the more will the boys be encouraged. For your married belles like to have men about them younger than themselves—it makes them appear younger, or at least they think so; and besides, such youths are more easily managed and more subservient. But, still worse, the more these boys usurp the place of men in society, the more boyish and retrograde will the few men become who continue to divide the honors of society with them. When Plato enumerated among the signs of a republic in the last stage of decadence, that the youth imitate and rival old men, and the old men let themselves down to a level with the youth, he anticipated exactly[Pg 214] the state of things that has come to pass among us. Look at that little friend of yours with the beard—I don't mean Edwards, but an older man about his size."

"Dicky Bleecker, I suppose you mean," growled Benson: "he's as much your friend—or your wife's—as he is mine."

"Well, he is my contemporary, I may say; perhaps five years at most my junior. What perceptible sign of mature age or manliness is there about him? In what is he superior to or distinguishable from young Snelling, who but this season rejoices in his first white tie and first horse, and in the fruits of his first course of dancing lessons?"

"Well, but consider," said Benson, who was always ready to take up any side of an argument—it was one of the first criticisms Ashburner made on American conversation, that the men seemed to talk for victory rather than for truth—"it stands to reason, that an intelligent married woman must be better able than a girl to converse with a mature man, and her conversation must have more attraction for him. As to our boys coming out too soon, doubtless they do, but that depends not on the persons ready to receive them, but on the general social system of the country which pushes them into the world so early. For instance, I was left my own master at twenty-one. So, too, with the want of proper progress and growth in knowledge of the men. It is and must be so with the man of fashion every where, for he is not occupied in learning things that have a tendency to develop or improve his mind, but the contrary. I myself have seen Frenchmen of fifty as easily amused and as eager after trifles as boys."

"Frenchmen?" sneered the other; "yes, but they are boys all their lives, except in innocence."

"Very amusing and pleasant, at any rate; the best people for travelling acquaintances that I know."

"Exactly—very pleasant to know for a little while. I have met with a great many Frenchmen who impressed me favorably, and I used to think as you say, what amusing people they were, but I never had occasion to live with one for any length of time without finding him a bore and a nuisance. A Frenchman turns himself inside out, as it were, at once. He shows off all that there is to show on first acquaintance. You see the best of him immediately, and afterwards there is nothing left but repetitions of the same things, and eternal dissertations on himself and his own affairs. He is like a wide, shallow house, with a splendid front externally, and scanty furniture inside."

"Very true, and an Englishman (don't blush Ashburner) is like a suite of college-rooms in one of his own university towns—a rusty exterior, a dark, narrow passage along which you find your way with difficulty; and when you do get in, jolly and comfortable apartments open suddenly upon you; and as you come to examine them more carefully, you discover all sorts of snug, little, out-of-the-way closets and recesses, full of old books and old wine, and all things rich and curious. But the entrance is uninviting to a casual acquaintance. Now, when you find an American of the right stamp (here Benson's hands were accidentally employed in adjusting his cravat), he hits the proper medium, and is accessible as a Frenchman and as true as an Englishman."

Ashburner was going to express a doubt as to the compatibility of the two qualities, when Harrison struck in again.

"On that account I never could see why Frenchmen should be dreaded as dangerous in society. They fling out all their graces at once, exhaust all their powers of fascination, and soon begin to be tiresome. How many cases I have seen where a Frenchman fancied he was making glorious headway in a lady's affections, and that she was just ready to fall into his arms, when she was only ready to fall asleep in his face, and was civil to him only from a great sacrifice of inclination to politeness!"

"Very pleasant it must be to a lady," said Ashburner, "that a man should be at the same time wearying her to death with his company, and perilling her reputation out of doors by his language."

"By Jove, it's dinner time!" exclaimed Benson, pulling out a microscopic Geneva watch. "I thought the clock of my inner man said as much." And back they hurried through the woods to the Glen House, but were as late for the dinner as they had been for the dance. Harrison and Benson found seats at the lower end of the table, where they established themselves together and began, à propos of Edwards's misadventure, to talk horse, either because they had exhausted all other subjects, or because they did not think the company worthy a better one. Mrs. Benson beckoned Ashburner up to a place by her, but, somehow, he found himself opposite Mrs. Harrison's eyes, and though he could not remember any thing she said ten minutes after, her conversation, or looks, or both, had the effect of transferring to her all the interest he was beginning to feel for her husband—of whom, by the way, she took no more notice than if he had not belonged to her.

"Poor Harrison!" said Benson, as he and Ashburner were walking their horses leisurely homeward that evening (they both had too much sense to ride fast after dinner), "he is twice thrown away! He might have been a literary gentleman and a lover of art, living quietly on a respectable fortune; but his father would make him go into business. He might be a model family man, and at the same time a very entertaining member of society; but his wife has snubbed and suppressed him for her own exaltation. If, instead of treating him thus, she would only show him a little gratitude as the source of all her luxury and magnificence, her dresses and her jewelry,[Pg 215] her carriage and horses (what a pair of iron-grays she does drive!), and all her other splendors—if she would only be proud of him as the great broker—not to speak of his varied knowledge, of which she might also well be proud—if she would take some little pains to interest herself in his pleasures and to bring him forward in society—how easily she could correct and soften his little uncouthnesses of person and dress, if she would take the trouble! Why should she be ashamed of him? He is older than she—how much? ten years perhaps, or twelve at most. He is not a beauty; but in a man, I should say, mind, comes before good looks; and how infinitely superior he is in mind and soul to any of the frivolous little beaux, native or foreign, whom she delights to draw about her!"

"I fear I shall never be able to regard Mr. Harrison with as much respect as you do. It may be ignorance, but I never could see much difference between a speculator in stocks and a gambler."

"When a man is in his predicament domestically there are three things, to one, two, or all of which he is pretty sure to take—drink, gambling, and horses. Harrison is too purely intellectual a man to be led away by the vulgar animal temptation of liquor, though he has a good cellar, and sometimes consoles himself with a snug bachelor dinner. Stock-jobbing is, as you say, only another sort of gambling, and this is his vice: at the same time you will consider that it is his business, to which he was brought up. Then, for absolute relaxation, he has his 'fast crab.' Put him behind his 2' 45" stepper and he is happy for an hour or two, and forgets his miseries—that is to say, his wife."

"But you talk as if his marriage was the cause of his speculations, whereas you told me the other day that his speculations were the indirect cause of his marriage."

"You are right: I believe the beginning of that bad habit must be set down to his father's account; but the continuance of it is still chargeable on his wife. I have heard him say myself that he would have retired from business long ago but for Mrs. Harrison—that is to say, he had to go on making money to supply her extravagance."

One fine morning there was a great bustle and flurry; moving of trunks, and paying of bills, and preparations for departure. The fashionables were fairly starved out, and had gone off in a body. The brilliant equipages of Ludlow and Löwenberg, the superfine millinery of the Robinsons, the song and story of the Vicomte, the indefatigable revolutions of Edwards, were all henceforth to be lost to the sojourners at Oldport. Mr. Grabster heeded not this practical protest against the error of his ways. He had no difficulty in filling the vacant rooms, for a crowd of people from all parts of the Union constantly thronged Oldport, attracted by its reputation for coolness and salubrity; and he rather preferred people from the West and South, as they knew less about civilized life, and were more easily imposed upon. To be sure, even they would find out in time the deficiencies of his establishment, and report them at home; but meanwhile he hoped to fill his pockets for two or three seasons under cover of The Sewer's puffs, and then, when business fell off, to impose on his landlord with some plausible story, and obtain a lowering of his rent.

Some few—a very few—of "our set" were left. Our friend Harry stayed, because the air of the place agreed remarkably with the infant hope of the Bensons; and a few of the beaux remained—among them Sumner, White, and Sedley—either out of friendship for Benson, or retained by the attractions of Mrs. Benson, or those of Mrs. Harrison; for the lionne stayed of course, it being her line to do just whatever the exclusives did not do. But though Benson remained, he was not disposed to suffer in silence. All this while The Sewer had been filled with letters lauding every thing about the Bath Hotel; and communications equally disinterested, and couched in the same tone, had found their way into some more respectable prints. Benson undertook the thankless task of undeceiving the public. He sat down one evening and wrote off a spicy epistle to The Blunder and Bluster, setting forth how things really were at Oldport. Two days after, when the New-York mail arrived, great was the wrath of Mr. Grabster. He called into council the old gentleman with the melodious daughter, The Sewer reporters, and some other boarders who were in his confidence; and made magnificent, but rather vague promises, of what he would do for the man who should discover the daring individual who had thus bearded him in his very den; simultaneously he wrote to The Blunder and Bluster, demanding the name of the offender. With most American editors such a demand (especially if followed up with a good dinner or skilfully-applied tip to the reporter or correspondent) would have been perfectly successful. But he of The Blunder and Bluster was a much higher style of man. As Benson once said of him, he had, in his capacity of the first political journalist in the country, associated so much with gentlemen, that he had learned to be something of a gentleman himself. Accordingly he replied to Mr. Grabster, in a note more curt than courteous, that it was impossible to comply with his request. So the indignant host was obliged to content himself for the time with ordering The Sewer to abuse the incognito. Before many days, however, he obtained the desired information through another source, in this wise.

Oldport had its newspaper, of course. Every American village of more than ten houses has its newspaper. Mr. Cranberry Fuster, who presided over the destinies of The Oldport Daily Twaddler, added to this honorable and amiable occupation the equally honorable and amiable one of village attorney. Though his[Pg 216] paper was in every sense a small one, he felt and talked as big as if it had been The Times, or The Moniteur, or The Blunder and Bluster. He held the President of the United States as something almost beneath his notice, and was in the habit of lecturing the Czar of Russia, the Emperor of Austria, and other foreign powers, in true Little Pedlington style. Emboldened by the impunity which attended these assaults, he undertook to try his hand on matters nearer home, and boldly essayed one season to write down the polka and redowa as indecent and immoral. But here he found, as Alexander, Napoleon, and other great men, had done before him, that there is a limit to all human power. He might better have tried to write off the roof of the Bath Hotel, which was rather a fragile piece of work, and might have been carried away by much less wind than usually served to distend the columns of The Twaddler. The doughty Tom Edwards snapped his heels, so to speak, in the face of the mighty editor, and the exclusives continued to polk more frantically than ever in the teeth of his direst fulminations. One practical effect, however, these home diatribes had, which his luminous sallies on foreign affairs altogether failed to effect—they put money into his pocket. The next thing Americans like to hearing themselves well praised, is to hear somebody, even if it be themselves, well abused; and accordingly, on the mornings when Mr. Fuster let out an anti-polka article, the usually small circulation of his small sheet was multiplied by a very large factor—almost every stranger bought a copy, the million to see the abuse of the fashionables, the fashionables to see the abuse of themselves.

Benson, in the course of his almost annual visits to Oldport Springs, had been frequently amused by the antics of this formidable gentleman, and had laudably contributed to make them generally known. Once, when Mr. Fuster had politely denominated the Austrian emperor "a scoundrel," Harry moved The Blunder and Bluster to say, that it was very sorry for that potentate, who would undoubtedly be overwhelmed with mortification when he learned that The Twaddler entertained such an opinion of him. Whereupon Fuster, who was of a literal dulness absolutely joke-proof, struck off a flaming article on "the aristocratic sympathies" of The Blunder and Bluster, which, like a British Whig and Federal journal as it was, always came to the rescue of tyrants and despots, &c. &c. On another occasion—the very morning of a State election—The Twaddler had announced, with a great flourish, "that before its next sheet was issued Mr. Brown would be invested with the highest honors that the State could confer upon him." But even American editors are not always infallible; Mr. Brown came out sadly in the minority, and the day after The Blunder and Bluster had a little corner paragraph to this effect:—

"We sincerely regret to see that our amusing little contemporary, The Oldport Daily Twaddler, has suspended publication."

At this Mr. Fuster flared up fearfully, and threatened to sue The Blunder and Bluster for libel.

Now this magniloquent editor, who professed to be a great moral reformer at home, and to regulate the destinies of nations abroad, was in truth the mere creature and toady of Mr. Grabster, the greater part of the revenue of his small establishment being derived from printing the bills and advertisements of the Bath Hotel. As in duty bound, therefore, he set to work to abuse the anonymous assailant of that atrociously-kept house, calling him a quantity of heterogeneous names, and more than insinuating that he was a person who had never been in good society, and did not know what good living was, because he found fault with the living at the Bath Hotel. The leader wound up with a more than ever exaggerated eulogy of Mr. Grabster and his "able and gentlemanly assistants." Benson happened to get hold of this number of The Twaddler one evening when he had nothing to do, and those dangerous implements, pen, ink, and paper, were within his reach. Beginning to note down the absurdities and non sequiturs in Mr. Fuster's article, he found himself writing a very chaffy letter to The Twaddler. He had an unfortunate talent for correspondence had Benson, like most of his countrymen; so, giving the reins to his whim, he finished the epistle, making it very spicy and satirical, with a garnish of similes and classical quotations—altogether rather a neat piece of work, only it might have been objected to as a waste of cleverness, and building a large wheel to break a very small bug upon. Then he dropped it into the post-office himself, never dreaming that Cranberry would publish it, but merely anticipating the wrath of the little-great man on receiving such a communication. It chanced, however, not long before, that Benson, in the course of some legal proceedings, had been to sign papers, and "take fifty cents' worth of affidavit," as he himself phrased it, before Mr. Fuster in his legal capacity. The latter gentleman had thus the means of identifying by comparison, the handwriting of the pseudonymous letter. In a vast fit of indignation, not unmingled with satisfaction, he brought out next day Harry's letter at full length, to the great peril of the Latin quotations, and then followed it up with a rejoinder of his own, in which he endeavored to take an attitude of sublime dignity, backed up by classical quotations also, to show that he understood Latin as well as Benson. But the attempt was as unsuccessful as it was elaborate, for his anger broke through in every other sentence, making the intended "smasher" an extraordinary compound of superfine writing and vulgar abuse.

When in the course of human events (he began) it becomes necessary for men holding our lofty and responsible position to stoop to the chastisement of pretentious ignorance and imbecility, we shall not be found to shrink from the task. The writer of the above letter is Mr. Henry Benson, a young man of property,[Pg 217] and a Federal Whig. He insinuates that we are very stupid. It's no such thing; we are not stupid a bit, and we mean to show Mr. B. as much before we have done with him. Mr. Benson is a pompous young aristocrat, and Mr. Grabster is more of a gentleman than he is—and so are we too for that matter. He says the Bath Hotel is a badly kept house. We say it isn't, and we know a great deal better than he does. We have dined there very often, and found the fare and attendance excellent: and so did the Honorable Theophilus Q. Smith, of Arkansas, last summer, when he came to enjoy the invigorating breezes of this healthful locality. That distinguished and remarkable man expressed himself struck with the arrangements of the Bath Hotel, which left him no cause, he said, to regret the comforts of his western home. But this establishment cannot please the fastidious Mr. Benson! O tempora, O Moses! as Cicero said to Catiline, quousque tandem?

Likewise, The Sewer, which had begun to blackguard The Blunder and Bluster's correspondent while he remained under the shelter of his pseudonym, now that his name was known, came out with double virulence, and filled half a sheet with filthy abuse of Harry, including collateral assaults on his brother, grandmother, and second cousins, and most of the surviving members of his wife's family. But as Benson never read The Sewer, this part of the attack was an utter waste of Billingsgate so far as he was concerned. What did surprise and annoy him was to find that The Inexpressible, which, though well-known to be a stupid, was generally considered a decent paper, had taken the enemy's side, and published some very impertinent paragraphs about him. Afterwards he discovered that he had been the victim of a principle. The Inexpressible and Blunder and Bluster had a little private quarrel of their own, and the former felt bound to attack every thing in any way connected with the latter.

Nevertheless Benson was not very much distressed even at this occurrence, for a reason which we shall now give at length, and which will at the same time explain the propriety of the heading we have given to this number. While every body was reading The Sewer and The Twaddler, and the more benevolent were pitying Harry for having started such a nest of editorial and other blackguards about his ears, and the more curious were wondering whether he would leave the hotel and resign the field of battle to the enemy, our friend really cared very little about the matter, except so far as he could use it for a blind to divert attention from another affair which he had on hand, and which it was of the greatest importance to keep secret, lest it should draw down the interference of the local authorities: in short, he had a defiance to mortal combat impending over him, which dangerous probability he had brought upon himself in this wise.

Among the beaux who remained after the Hegira of the fashionables was a Mr. Storey Hunter, who had arrived at Oldport only just before that great event, for he professed to be a traveller and travelling man, and, to keep up the character never came to a place when other people did, but always popped up unexpectedly in the middle, or at the end, of a season, as if he had just dropped from the moon, or arrived from the antipodes. He had an affectation of being foreign—not English, or French, or German, or like any particular European nation, but foreign in a general sort of way, something not American; and always, on whichever side of the Atlantic he was, hailed from some locality; at one time describing himself in hotel books as from England, at another as from Paris, at another from Baden—from anywhere, in short, except his own native village in Connecticut. In accordance with this principle, moreover, he carefully eschewed the indigenous habits of dress; and while all the other men appeared at the balls in dress coats, and black or white cravats, he usually displayed a flaming scarlet or blue tie, a short frock coat, and yellow or brown trousers. A man six feet high, and nearly as many round, is a tolerably conspicuous object in most places, even without any marked peculiarities of dress; and when to this it is added, that Mr. Hunter exhibited on his shirt-front and watch-chain trinkets enough to stock a jeweller's shop, and that he was always redolent of the most fashionable perfumes, it may be supposed that he was not likely to escape notice at Oldport. His age no one knew exactly; some of the old stagers gave him forty years and more, but he was in a state of wonderful preservation, had a miraculous dye for his whiskers, and a perpetually fresh color in his cheeks. Sedley used to say he rouged, and that you might see the marks of it inside his collar; but this may have been only an accident in shaving. He rather preferred French to English in conversation; and with good reason, for when he used the former language, you might suppose (with your eyes shut) that you were talking to a very refined gentleman, whereas, so soon as he opened his mouth in the vernacular, the provincial Yankee stood revealed before you. As to his other qualities and merits, he appeared to have plenty of money, and was an excellent and indefatigable dancer. Ashburner, when he saw him spin round morning after morning, and night after night, till he all but melted away himself, and threatened to drown his partner, thought he must have the laudable motive of wishing to reduce his bulk, which, however, continued undiminished. Notwithstanding his travels and accomplishments, which, especially the dancing, were sufficient to give him a passport to the best society, there were some who regarded him with very unfavorable eyes, more particularly Sumner and Benson. Supposing this to be merely another of the frivolous feuds that existed in the place, and among "our set," Ashburner was not over-anxious or curious to know the[Pg 218] cause of it. Nor, if he had been, did the parties seem disposed to afford him much information. Benson had, indeed, observed one day, that that Storey Hunter was the greatest blackguard in Oldport, except The Sewer reporters; but as he had already said the same thing of half-a-dozen men, his friend was not deterred thereby from making Hunter's acquaintance—or rather, from accepting it; the difficulty at Oldport being, not to make the acquaintance of any man in society. And he found the fat dandy, to all appearance, an innocent and good-natured person, rather childish for his years, and well illustrating Harrison's assertion, that the men in fashionable life rather retrograded than developed from twenty to forty; but in no apparent respect formidable, save for a more than American tendency to gossip. He had some story to the prejudice of every one, but seemed to tell all these stories just as an enfant terrible might, without fully understanding them, or at all heeding the possible consequences of repeating them.

The glory of the balls had departed with Edwards and the Robinsons, but the remaining fashionables kept up their amusement with much vigor; and the absence of the others, though detracting much from the brilliancy of the place, was in some respects the gain of a loss. White came out in all his glory now that most of the young men were gone. With his graceful figure, neat dress, and ever-ready smile and compliment, he looked the very ideal of the well-drilled man of fashion. Sumner, though he could not have talked less if he had been an English heavy dragoon-officer, or an Hungarian refugee, understanding no language but his own, was very useful for a quiet way he had of arranging every thing beforehand without fuss or delay, and, moreover, had the peculiar merit (difficult to explain, but which we have all observed in some person at some period of our lives) of being good company without talking. Benson, with less pretence and display than he had before exhibited, showed an energy and indefatigableness almost equal to Le Roi's; whatever he undertook, he "kept the pot a-boiling." In short, the people of "our set," who were left, went on among themselves much better than before, because the men's capabilities were not limited to dancing, and the women had less temptation to be perpetually dressing. Besides, the removal of most of the fashionables had encouraged the other portions of the transient population to come more forward, and exhibit various primitive specimens of dancing, and other traits worth observing. One evening there was a "hop" at the Bellevue. Ashburner made a point of always looking in at these assemblies for an hour or so, and scrutinizing the company with the coolness and complacency which an Englishman usually assumes in such places, as if all the people there were made merely for his amusement. Benson, who had literally polked the heel off one of his boots, and thereby temporarily disabled himself, was lounging about with him, making observations on men, women, and things generally.

"You wouldn't think that was only a girl of seventeen," said Harry, as a languishing brunette, with large, liquid black eyes, and a voluptuous figure, glided by them in the waltz. "How soon these Southerners develope into women! They beat the Italians even."

"I wonder the young lady has time to grow, she dances so much. I have watched her two or three evenings, and she has never rested a moment except when the music stopped.—Something must suffer, it seems to me. Does her mind develope uniformly with her person? She is a great centre of attraction, I observe; is it only for her beauty and dancing?"

"I suppose a beautiful young woman, with fifty or sixty thousand a year, may consider mental accomplishments as superfluous. She knows, perhaps, as much as a Russian woman of five-and-twenty. How much that is, you, who have been on the Continent, know."

"Exactly. I put the income down at half of what popular report makes it; these southern fortunes are so uncertain: the white part of the property (that is to say, the cotton) varies with the seasons; and the black part takes to itself legs, and runs off occasionally. But, at any rate, there is quite enough to make her a great prize, and an object of admiration and attention to all the little men—not to the old hands, like White and Sumner; they are built up in their own conceit, and wouldn't marry Sam Weller's 'female marchioness,' unless she made love to them first, like one of Knowles's heroines. But the juveniles are crazy about her. Robinson went off more ostentatiously love-sick than a man of his size I ever saw; and Sedley is always chanting her praises—the only man, woman, or child, he was ever known to speak well of. I don't think any of them will catch her. Edwards might dance into her heart, perhaps, if he were a little bigger; but as it is, she will, probably, make happy and rich some one in her own part of the world. She says the young men there suit her better, because they are 'more gentlemanly' than we Northerners."

"I have heard many strangers say the same thing," said Ashburner, prudently refraining from expressing any opinion of his own for he knew Benson's anti-southern feelings.

"If education has any thing to do with being a gentleman, then, whether you take education in the highest sense, as the best discipline and expansion of the mind by classical and scientific study; or in the utilitarian sense, as the acquisition of useful knowledge, and a practical acquaintance with men and things; or in the fine lady sense, as the mastery of airs, and graces, and drawing-room accomplishments; or in the moralist's sense, as the curbing of our mischievous propensities, and the[Pg 219] energizing of our good ones—in every case, we are more of gentlemen than the Southerners. If the mere possession of wealth, and progress in the grosser and more material arts of civilization, have any thing to do with it, then, too, we are more of gentlemen. Their claims rest on two grounds: first, they live on the unpaid labor of others, while we all work, more or less, for ourselves, holding idleness as disgraceful as they do labor; secondly, they are all the time fighting duels."

"Scarcely any since Burr shot Hamilton. Alexander Hamilton was one of our greatest men, and his death excited a feeling throughout the Northern States which put down the practice almost entirely; and I certainly think it a step forward in real civilization."

"Do you mean to say that it is with you as with us, where, if a man becomes so involved in a quarrel that he is challenged, it is against him and almost ruin to him whether he fights or does not fight? Or is public opinion decidedly in favor of the man who does not fight, and against the man who does? For instance, suppose you were challenged yourself?"

"A man can't say beforehand what he would do in an emergency of the kind; but my impression is that I should not fight, and that the opinion of society would bear me out."

"It is next door to impossible that an American gentleman should do such a thing; but if he did, I should consider that he had reduced himself to the level of a snob, and should treat him as I would any snob in the streets,—knock him down, if I was able; and if I wasn't, take the law of him: and if a man had wronged me irreparably, I fancy I should do as these uncivilized Southerners themselves do in such a case,—shoot him down in the street, wherever I could catch him. What sense or justice is there in a duel? It is as if a man stole your coat, and instead of having him put into prison, you drew lots with him whether you or he should go."

"But suppose a man was spreading false reports about you; suppose he said you were no gentleman, or that you had cheated somebody?"

"Bah!" replied Benson, dexterously evading the most important part of the question, "if I were to fight all the people that spread false reports about me, I should have my hands full. There is a man in this room that slandered me as grossly as he could four years ago, and was very near breaking off my marriage. That fat man there, with all the jewelry—Storey Hunter."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the other, really surprised, for he had just seen Mrs. Benson conversing with the ponderous exquisite, apparently on most amicable terms.

"Yes, and it was entirely gratuitous. I never gave the scamp any provocation. By Jupiter!" Benson turned very white and then very red, "if he isn't dancing with my wife! His impudence is too much, and——. I believe one of our women would put up with any thing from a man here if he can only dance well. They have no self-respect."

Benson appeared to have very little himself at that moment, and not to care much what he said or did. He trembled all over with rage, and his friend expected to see an immediate outbreak; but, as if recollecting himself, he suddenly stammered out something about the necessity of changing his boots, and limped off accordingly for that purpose. He was not gone more than five minutes, but in that time had contrived not only to supply his pedal deficiency, but also to take a drink by way of calming himself; and after the drink he took a turn with Miss Friskin, and whirled her about the room, till he knocked over two or three innocent bystanders, all of which tended very much to compose his feelings. Ashburner had a presentiment that something would happen, and stayed longer that night than his wont; indeed, till the end of the ball, which, as there was now no German cotillion, lasted till only one in the morning.

But the universal panacea of the polka had its mollifying effect on Benson, and every thing might have passed off quietly but for an unlucky accident. Some of the young Southerners had ordered up sundry bottles of champagne, and were drinking the same in a corner. Hunter, who was much given to toadying Southerners (another reason for Benson's dislike of him), mingled among them, and partook of the inspiring beverage. In vino veritas is true as gospel, if you understand it rightly as meaning that wine develops a man's real nature. Hunter, being by nature gossipy and mendacious, waxed more and more so with every glass of Heidseck he took down. Ashburner chancing to pass near the group, had his attention arrested by hearing Benson's name. He stopped, and listened: Hunter was going on with a prolix and somewhat confused story of some horse that Benson had sold to somebody, in which transaction Sumner was somehow mixed up, and the horse hadn't turned out well, and the purchaser wasn't satisfied, and so on.

And Benson did hear it very promptly, for Sedley was within ear-shot, and, delighted at having a piece of mischief to communicate, he tracked Harry out at the further extremity of the room, to inform him of the liberties Storey Hunter was taking with his name. Whereupon the slandered one, with all his wrath reawakened, traversed the apartment in time to hear the emphatic peroration that, "bad as Sumner was, Benson was a thousand times worse."

"I can't stand this," exclaimed he. "Where is Frank Sumner?" Sumner was not visible.[Pg 220] "Ashburner, will you stand by me if there's a row?"

By this time the ball was breaking up, and Benson, on going back to look for his party, found that Mrs. B., like a true watering-place belle, had gone off without waiting for him. This was exactly what he wanted. Keeping his eye on Hunter, he followed him out to the head of the staircase, where he had just been bidding good night to some ladies. No one was in sight but Ashburner, who happened to be standing just outside the door-way. The fat man nodded to Harry as if they had been the best friends in the world.

"Curse his impudence!" exclaimed Benson, now fairly boiling over. "Holloa, you Hunter! did you know you were an infernal scoundrel? Because you are."

"What for?" quoth the individual in question, half sobered and half disconcerted by this unceremonious address.

"And a contemptible blackguard," continued Benson, following up his verbal attack.

Ashburner wondered if the two men were going to stand slanging each other all night.

"I ought to have pulled your nose three years ago, and now take that!" and Benson, who had been working at his glove ever since the parley began, twitched it off and slapped Hunter in the face with it.

When an Irishman sees two people fighting, or going to fight, his natural impulse is to urge them on. A Scotchman or an American tries to part them. A Frenchman runs after the armed force. An Englishman does nothing but look quietly on, unless one side meets with foul play. Thus it was with Ashburner in the present instance. He took Benson's request "to stand by him in case of a row," au pied de la lettre. He stood by him, and that was all.

As soon as Hunter felt the glove in his face he struck out at Benson, who stopped the blow very neatly, and seemed about to return it with a left-hander; then suddenly changing his style of attack, he rushed within the other's guard, and catching him by the throat with both hands, did his best to strangle him. Hunter, unable to call for help or to loosen the throttling grasp of his assailant, threw himself bodily upon him. As he was about twice Benson's size and weight, the experiment succeeded. Harry was thrown off his feet and precipitated against the banisters, which being of slight material, gave way like so much paper, and both men tumbled over into the landing-place below amid a great scattering of splinters. Lighting on their feet, they began to pummel each other without doing more damage than a couple of children, for they were at such close quarters and so blinded by rage that they hit wild; but Benson had caught his man by the throat again and was just getting him into chancery, when White, Sedley, and some of the Southerners, attracted by the noise, ran down stairs, calling on the "gentlemen" to "behave as such," and words proving ineffectual, endeavoring to pull them apart; which was no easy matter, for Benson hung on like grim death, and when his hand was removed from Hunter's collar, caught him again by the nose, nor would he give up till Mr. Simson, who was one of the stoutest and most active men in the place, caught him up from behind and fairly carried him off to the hall below. Then he seemed to come to himself all at once, and recollected that he had invited the remains of "our set" to supper that night. And accordingly, after taking a rapid survey of himself in a glass, and finding that his face bore no mark of the conflict, and that his dress was not more disordered than a man's usually is when he has been polkaing all the evening, he went off to meet his company, and a very merry time they had of it. Ashburner was surprised to find that the spectators of the fray were able to ignore it so completely. If they had been old men and old soldiers, they could not have acted with more discretion, and it was impossible to suspect from their conversation or manner that any thing unpleasant had occurred. "These people do know how to hold their tongues sometimes," thought he.

Next morning while strolling about before breakfast (he was the earliest riser of the young men in the place, as he did not dance or gamble), he heard firing in the pistol-gallery. He thought of his conversation with Benson and the occurrences of last night, and then recollected that he was out of practice himself, and that there would be no harm in trying a few shots. So he strode over to the gallery, and there, to his astonishment, found on one side of the door the keeper, on the other Frank Sumner (who had given a most devoted proof of friendship by getting up two hours earlier in the morning than he had ever been known to do before); and between them Benson, blazing away at the figure, and swearing at himself for not making better shots.

"Take time by the forelock, you see," said he as he recognized Ashburner. "Nunquam non paratus. The fellow will send me a challenge this morning, I suppose, and I want to be ready for him."

"But do you know," said the Englishman, "if after this you should kill your man, we in our country would call it something very like murder?"

"That may be," answered Harry, as he let fly again, this time ringing the bell; "but we only call it practice."

John Adams, in his Diary, states, that out of eight prominent members of the Boston bar in 1763, with whom he was one evening discussing the encroachments of England upon the colonies, only one, Adams himself, lived through the Revolution, as an advocate of American independence. Five adhered to Great Britain: Gridley, Auchmuty, Fitch, Kent, and Hutchinson. Thatcher died in 1765, and Otis became incapacitated in 1771.

From Colburn's New Monthly Magazine

THE TWIN SISTERS.

A TRUE STORY.

BY W. WILKIE COLLINS, AUTHOR OF "ANTONINA."

Among those who attended the first of the King's levées, during the London season of 18—, was an unmarried gentleman of large fortune, named Streatfield. While his carriage was proceeding slowly down St. James's Street, he naturally sought such amusement and occupation as he could find in looking on the brilliant scene around him. The day was unusually fine; crowds of spectators thronged the street and the balconies of the houses on either side, all gazing at the different equipages with as eager a curiosity and interest, as if fine vehicles and fine people inside them were the rarest objects of contemplation in the whole metropolis. Proceeding at a slower and slower pace, Mr. Streatfield's carriage had just arrived at the middle of the street, when a longer stoppage than usual occurred. He looked carelessly up at the nearest balcony; and there among some eight or ten ladies, all strangers to him, he saw one face that riveted his attention immediately.

He had never beheld any thing so beautiful, any thing which struck him with such strange, mingled, and sudden sensations, as this face. He gazed and gazed on it, hardly knowing where he was, or what he was doing, until the line of vehicles began again to move on. Then—after first ascertaining the number of the house—he flung himself back in the carriage, and tried to examine his own feelings, to reason himself into self-possession; but it was all in vain. He was seized with that amiable form of social monomania, called "love at first sight."

He entered the palace, greeted his friends, and performed all the necessary Court ceremonies, feeling the whole time like a man in a trance. He spoke mechanically, and moved mechanically—the lovely face in the balcony occupied his thoughts, to the exclusion of every thing else. On his return home, he had engagements for the afternoon and the evening—he forgot and broke them all; and walked back to St. James's Street as soon as he had changed his dress.

The balcony was empty; the sight-seers, who had filled it but a few hours before, had departed—but obstacles of all sorts now tended only to stimulate Mr. Streatfield; he was determined to ascertain the parentage of the young lady, determined to look on the lovely face again—the thermometer of his heart had risen already to Fever Heat! Without loss of time, the shopkeeper to whom the house belonged was bribed to loquacity by a purchase. All that he could tell, in answer to inquiries, was that he had let his lodgings to an elderly gentleman and his wife, from the country, who had asked some friends into their balcony to see the carriages go to the levée. Nothing daunted, Mr. Streatfield questioned and questioned again. What was the old gentleman's name?—Dimsdale.—Could he see Mr. Dimsdale's servant?—The obsequious shopkeeper had no doubt that he could: Mr. Dimsdale's servant should be sent for immediately.

In a few minutes the servant, the all-important link in the chain of Love's evidence, made his appearance. He was a pompous, portly man, who listened with solemn attention, with a stern judicial calmness, to Mr. Streatfield's rapid and somewhat confused inquiries, which were accompanied by a minute description of the young lady, and by several explanatory statements, all very fictitious, and all very plausible. Stupid as the servant was, and suspicious as all stupid people are, he had nevertheless sense enough to perceive that he was addressed by a gentleman, and gratitude enough to feel considerably mollified by the handsome douceur which was slipped into his hand. After much pondering and doubting, he at last arrived at the conclusion that the fair object of Mr. Streatfield's inquiries was a Miss Langley, who had joined the party in the balcony that morning, with her sister; and who was the daughter of Mr. Langley, of Langley Hall, in ——shire. The family were now staying in London, at —— Street. More information than this, the servant stated that he could not afford—he was certain that he had made no mistake, for the Miss Langleys were the only very young ladies in the house that morning—however, if Mr. Streatfield wished to speak to his master, he was ready to carry any message with which he might be charged.

But Mr. Streatfield had already heard enough for his purpose, and departed at once for his club, determined to discover some means of being introduced in due form to Miss Langley, before he slept that night—though he should travel round the whole circle of his acquaintance—high and low, rich and poor—in making the attempt. Arrived at the club, he began to inquire resolutely, in all directions, for a friend who knew Mr. Langley, of Langley Hall. He disturbed gastronomic gentlemen at their dinner; he interrupted agricultural gentlemen who were moaning over the prospects of the harvest; he startled literary gentlemen who were deep in the critical mysteries of the last Review; he invaded billiard-room, dressing-room, smoking-room; he was more like a frantic ministerial whipper-in, hunting up stray members for a division, than an ordinary man; and the oftener he was defeated in his object, the more determined he was to succeed. At last, just as he had vainly inquired of every body that he knew, just as he was standing in the hall of the clubhouse thinking where he should go next, a friend entered, who at once relieved him of all his difficulties—a precious, an estimable man, who was on intimate terms with Mr. Langley, and had been lately staying at Langley Hall. To this friend all the lover's cares and anxieties were at once confided; and a fitter depositary for such secrets of the heart could hardly have been found. He made no jokes—for he[Pg 222] was not a bachelor; he abstained from shaking his head and recommending prudence—for he was not a seasoned husband, or an experienced widower; what he really did was to enter heart and soul into his friend's projects—for he was precisely in that position, the only position, in which the male sex generally take a proper interest in match-making: he was a newly married man.

Two days after, Mr. Streatfield was the happiest of mortals—he was introduced to the lady of his love—to Miss Jane Langley. He really enjoyed the priceless privilege of looking again on the face in the balcony, and looking on it almost as often as he wished. It was perfect Elysium. Mr. and Mrs. Langley saw little or no company—Miss Jane was always accessible, never monopolized—the light of her beauty shone, day after day, for her adorer alone; and his love blossomed in it, fast as flowers in a hot-house. Passing quickly by all the minor details of the wooing to arrive the sooner at the grand fact of the winning, let us simply relate that Mr. Streatfield's object in seeking an introduction to Mr. Langley was soon explained, and was indeed visible enough long before the explanation. He was a handsome man, an accomplished man, and a rich man. His two first qualifications conquered the daughter, and his third the father. In six weeks Mr. Streatfield was the accepted suitor of Miss Jane Langley.

The wedding-day was fixed—it was arranged that the marriage should take place at Langley Hall, whither the family proceeded, leaving the unwilling lover in London, a prey to all the inexorable business formalities of the occasion. For ten days did the ruthless lawyers—those dead weights that burden the back of Hymen—keep their victim imprisoned in the metropolis, occupied over settlements that never seemed likely to be settled. But even the long march of the law has its end like other mortal things: at the expiration of the ten days all was completed, and Mr. Streatfield found himself at liberty to start for Langley Hall.

A large party was assembled at the house to grace the approaching nuptials. There were to be tableaux, charades, boating-trips, riding-excursions, amusements of all sorts—the whole to conclude (in the play-bill phrase) with the grand climax of the wedding. Mr. Streatfield arrived late; dinner was ready: he had barely time to dress, and then bustle into the drawing-room, just as the guests were leaving it, to offer his arm to Miss Jane—all greetings with friends and introductions to strangers being postponed till the party met round the dining-table.

Grace had been said; the covers were taken off; the loud, cheerful hum of conversation was just beginning, when Mr. Streatfield's eyes met the eyes of a young lady who was seated opposite, at the table. The guests near him, observing at the same moment, that he continued standing after every one else had been placed, glanced at him inquiringly. To their astonishment and alarm, they observed that his face had suddenly become deadly pale—his rigid features looked struck by paralysis. Several of his friends spoke to him; but for the first few moments he returned no answer. Then, still fixing his eyes upon the young lady opposite, he abruptly exclaimed, in a voice, the altered tones of which startled every one who heard him:—"That is the face I saw in the balcony!—that woman is the only woman I can ever marry!" The next instant, without a word more of either explanation or apology, he hurried from the room.

One or two of the guests mechanically started up, as if to follow him; the rest remained at the table, looking on each other in speechless surprise. But before any one could either act or speak, almost at the moment when the door closed on Mr. Streatfield, the attention of all was painfully directed to Jane Langley. She had fainted. Her mother and sisters removed her from the room immediately, aided by the servants. As they disappeared, a dead silence again sank down over the company—they all looked around with one accord to the master of the house.

Mr. Langley's face and manner sufficiently revealed the suffering and suspense that he was secretly enduring. But he was a man of the world—neither by word nor action did he betray what was passing within him. He resumed his place at the table, and begged his guests to do the same. He affected to make light of what had happened; entreated every one to forget it, or, if they remembered it at all, to remember it only as a mere accident which would no doubt be satisfactorily explained. Perhaps it was only a jest on Mr. Streatfield's part—rather too serious a one, he must own. At any rate, whatever was the cause of the interruption to the dinner which had just happened, it was not important enough to require every body to fast around the table of the feast. He asked it as a favor to himself, that no further notice might be taken of what had occurred. While Mr. Langley was speaking thus, he hastily wrote a few lines on a piece of paper, and gave it to one of the servants. The note was directed to Mr. Streatfield; the lines contained only these words:—"Two hours hence, I shall expect to see you alone in the library."

The dinner proceeded; the places occupied by the female members of the Langley family, and by the young lady who had attracted Mr. Streatfield's notice in so extraordinary a manner, being left vacant. Every one present endeavored to follow Mr. Langley's advice, and go through the business of the dinner, as if nothing had occurred; but the attempt failed miserably. Long, blank pauses occurred in the conversation; general topics were started, but never pursued; it was more like an assembly of strangers, than a meeting of friends; people neither ate nor drank, as they were accustomed to eat and drink; they talked in[Pg 223] altered voices, and sat with unusual stillness, even in the same positions. Relatives, friends, and acquaintances, all alike perceived that some great domestic catastrophe had happened; all foreboded that some serious, if not fatal, explanation of Mr. Streatfield's conduct would ensue: and it was vain and hopeless—a very mockery of self-possession—to attempt to shake off the sinister and chilling influences that recent events had left behind them, and resume at will the thoughtlessness and hilarity of ordinary life.

Still, however, Mr. Langley persisted in doing the honors of his table, in proceeding doggedly through all the festive ceremonies of the hour, until the ladies rose and retired. Then, after looking at his watch, he beckoned to one of his sons to take his place; and quietly left the room. He only stopped once, as he crossed the hall, to ask news of his daughter from one of the servants. The reply was, that she had had a hysterical fit; that the medical attendant of the family had been sent for; and that since his arrival she had become more composed. When the man had spoken, Mr. Langley made no remark, but proceeded at once to the library. He locked the door behind him, as soon as he entered the room.

Mr. Streatfield was already waiting there—he was seated at the table, endeavoring to maintain an appearance of composure, by mechanically turning over the leaves of the books before him. Mr. Langley drew a chair near him; and in low, but very firm tones, began the conversation thus:—

"I have given you two hours, sir, to collect yourself, to consider your position fully—I presume, therefore, that you are now prepared to favor me with an explanation of your conduct at my table, to-day."

"What explanation can I make?—what can I say, or think of this most terrible of fatalities?" exclaimed Mr. Streatfield, speaking faintly and confusedly; and still not looking up—"There has been an unexampled error committed!—a fatal mistake, which I could never have anticipated, and over which I had no control!"

"Enough, sir, of the language of romance," interrupted Mr. Langley, coldly; "I am neither of an age nor a disposition to appreciate it. I come here to ask plain questions honestly, and I insist, as my right, on receiving answers in the same spirit. You, Mr. Streatfield, sought an introduction to me—you professed yourself attached to my daughter Jane—your proposals were (I fear unhappily for us) accepted—your wedding-day was fixed—and now, after all this, when you happen to observe my daughter's twin-sister sitting opposite to you—"

"Her twin-sister!" exclaimed Mr. Streatfield; and his trembling hand crumpled the leaves of the book, which he still held while he spoke. "Why is it, intimate as I have been with your family, that I now know for the first time that Miss Jane Langley has a twin-sister?"

"Do you descend, sir, to a subterfuge, when I ask you for an explanation?" returned Mr. Langley, angrily. "You must have heard, over and over again, that my children, Jane and Clara, were twins."

"Spare me all appeals to your word or your honor, sir; I am beginning to doubt both."

"I will not make the unhappy situation in which we are all placed, still worse, by answering your last words, as I might, at other times, feel inclined to answer them," said Mr. Streatfield, assuming a calmer demeanor than he had hitherto displayed. "I tell you the truth, when I tell you that, before to-day, I never knew that any of your children were twins. Your daughter Jane has frequently spoken to me of her absent sister Clara, but never spoke to me of her as her twin-sister. Until to-day, I have had no opportunity of discovering the truth; for until to-day, I have never met Miss Clara Langley since I saw her in the balcony of the house in St. James's street. The only one of your children who was never present during my intercourse with your family in London, was your daughter Clara—the daughter whom I now know, for the first time, as the young lady who really arrested my attention on my way to the levée—whose affections it was really my object to win in seeking an introduction to you. To me, the resemblance between the twin-sisters has been a fatal resemblance; the long absence of one, a fatal absence."

There was a momentary pause, as Mr. Streatfield sadly and calmly pronounced the last words. Mr. Langley appeared to be absorbed in thought. At length he proceeded, speaking to himself:—

"It is strange! I remember that Clara left London on the day of the levée, to set out on a visit to her aunt; and only returned here two days since, to be present at her sister's marriage. Well, sir," he continued, addressing Mr. Streatfield, "granting what you say, granting that we all mentioned my absent daughter to you, as we are accustomed to mention her among ourselves, simply as 'Clara,' you have still not excused your conduct in my eyes. Remarkable as the resemblance is between the sisters, more remarkable even, I am willing to admit, than the resemblance usually is between twins, there is yet a difference, which, slight, indescribable though it may be, is nevertheless discernible to all their relations and to all their friends. How is it that you, who represent yourself as so vividly impressed by your first sight of my daughter Clara, did not discover the error when you were introduced to her sister Jane, as the lady who had so much attracted you."

"You forget, sir," rejoined Mr. Streatfield, "that I have never beheld the sisters together until to-day. Though both were in the balcony when I first looked up at it, it was Miss Clara Langley alone who attracted my attention. Had I only received the smallest hint that the absent sister of Miss Jane Langley[Pg 224] was her twin-sister, I would have seen her, at any sacrifice, before making my proposals. For it is my duty to confess to you, Mr. Langley (with the candor which is your undoubted due), that when I was first introduced to your daughter Jane, I felt an unaccountable impression that she was the same as, and yet different from, the lady whom I had seen in the balcony. Soon, however, this impression wore off. Under the circumstances, could I regard it as any thing but a mere caprice, a lover's wayward fancy? I dismissed it from my mind; it ceased to affect me, until to-day, when I first discovered that it was a warning which I had most unhappily disregarded; that a terrible error had been committed, for which no one of us was to blame, but which was fraught with misery, undeserved misery, to us all!"

"These, Mr. Streatfield, are explanations which may satisfy you," said Mr. Langley, in a milder tone, "but they cannot satisfy me; they will not satisfy the world. You have repudiated, in the most public and most abrupt manner, an engagement, in the fulfilment of which the honor and the happiness of my family are concerned. You have given me reasons for your conduct, it is true; but will those reasons restore to my daughter the tranquillity which she has lost, perhaps for ever? Will they stop the whisperings of calumny? Will they carry conviction to those strangers to me, or enemies of mine, whose pleasure it may be to disbelieve them? You have placed both yourself and me, sir, in a position of embarrassment—nay, a position of danger and disgrace, from which the strongest reasons and the best excuses cannot extricate us."

"I entreat you to believe," replied Mr. Streatfield, "that I deplore from my heart the error—the fault, if you will—of which I have been unconsciously guilty. I implore your pardon, both for what I said and did at your table to-day; but I cannot do more. I cannot and I dare not pronounce the marriage vows to your daughter, with my lips, when I know that neither my conscience nor my heart can ratify them. The commonest justice, and the commonest respect towards a young lady who deserves both, and more than both, from every one who approaches her, strengthen me to persevere in the only course which it is consistent with honor and integrity for me to take."

"You appear to forget," said Mr. Langley, "that it is not merely your own honor, but the honor of others, that is to be considered in the course of conduct which you are now to pursue."

"I have by no means forgotten what is due to you," continued Mr. Streatfield, "or what responsibilities I have incurred from the nature of my intercourse with your family. Do I put too much trust in your forbearance, if I now assure you, candidly and unreservedly, that I still place all my hopes of happiness in the prospect of becoming connected by marriage with a daughter of yours? Miss Clara Langley—"

Here the speaker paused. His position was becoming a delicate and a dangerous one; but he made no effort to withdraw from it. Almost bewildered by the pressing and perilous emergency of the moment, harassed by such a tumult of conflicting emotions within him as he had never known before, he risked the worst, with all the blindfold desperation of love. The angry flush was rising on Mr. Langley's cheek; it was evidently costing him a severe struggle to retain his assumed self-possession; but he did not speak. After an interval, Mr. Streatfield proceeded thus:—

"However unfortunately I may express myself, I am sure you will do me the justice to believe that I am now speaking from my heart on a subject (to me) of the most vital importance. Place yourself in my situation, consider all that has happened, consider that this may be, for aught I know to the contrary, the last opportunity I may have of pleading my cause; and then say whether it is possible for me to conceal from you that I can only look to your forbearance and sympathy for permission to retrieve my error, to—to—Mr. Langley! I cannot choose expressions at such a moment as this. I can only tell you that the feeling with which I regarded your daughter Clara, when I first saw her, still remains what it was. I cannot analyze it; I cannot reconcile its apparent inconsistencies and contradictions; I cannot explain how, while I may seem to you and to every one to have varied and vacillated with insolent caprice, I have really remained, in my own heart and to my own conscience, true to my first sensations and my first convictions. I can only implore you not to condemn me to a life of disappointment and misery, by judging me with hasty irritation. Favor me, so far at least, as to relate the conversation which has passed between us to your two daughters. Let me hear how it affects each of them towards me. Let me know what they are willing to think and ready to do under such unparalleled circumstances as have now occurred. I will wait your time, and their time; I will abide by your decision and their decision, pronounced after the first poignant distress and irritation of this day's events have passed over."

Still Mr. Langley remained silent; the angry word was on his tongue; the contemptuous rejection of what he regarded for the moment as a proposition equally ill-timed and insolent, seemed bursting to his lips; but once more he restrained himself. He rose from his seat, and walked slowly backwards and forwards, deep in thought. Mr. Streatfield was too much overcome by his own agitation to plead his cause further by another word. There was a silence in the room now, which lasted for some time.

We have said that Mr. Langley was a man of the world. He was strongly attached to his children; but he had a little of the selfishness and much of the reverence for wealth of a man of the world. As he now endeavored[Pg 225] to determine mentally on his proper course of action—to disentangle the whole case from all its mysterious intricacies—to view it, extraordinary as it was, in its proper bearings, his thoughts began gradually to assume what is called, "a practical turn." He reflected that he had another daughter, besides the twin-sisters, to provide for; and that he had two sons to settle in life. He was not rich enough to portion three daughters; and he had not interest enough to start his sons favorably in a career of eminence. Mr. Streatfield, on the contrary, was a man of great wealth, and of great "connections" among people in power. Was such a son-in-law to be rejected, even after all that had happened, without at least consulting his wife and daughters first? He thought not. Had not Mr. Streatfield, in truth, been the victim of a remarkable fatality, of an incredible accident, and were no allowances, under such circumstances, to be made for him? He began to think there were. Reflecting thus, he determined at length to proceed with moderation and caution at all hazards; and regained composure enough to continue the conversation in a cold, but still in a polite tone.

"I will commit myself, sir, to no agreement or promise whatever," he began, "nor will I consider this interview in any respect as a conclusive one, either on your side or mine; but if I think, on consideration, that it is desirable that our conversation should be repeated to my wife and daughters, I will make them acquainted with it, and will let you know the result. In the mean time, I think you will agree with me, that it is most fit that the next communications between us should take place by letter alone."

Mr. Streatfield was not slow in taking the hint conveyed by Mr. Langley'a last words. After what had occurred, and until something was definitely settled, he felt that the suffering and suspense which he was already enduring would be increased tenfold if he remained longer in the same house with the twin sisters—the betrothed of one, the lover of the other! Murmuring a few inaudible words of acquiescence in the arrangement which had just been proposed to him, he left the room. The same evening he quitted Langley Hall.

The next morning the remainder of the guests departed, their curiosity to know all the particulars of what had happened remaining ungratified. They were simply informed that an extraordinary and unexpected obstacle had arisen to delay the wedding; that no blame attached to any one in the matter; and that as soon as every thing had been finally determined, every thing would be explained. Until then, it was not considered necessary to enter in any way into particulars. By the middle of the day every visitor had left the house; and a strange and melancholy spectacle it presented when they were all gone. Rooms were now empty and silent, which the day before had been filled with animated groups, and had echoed with merry laughter. In one apartment, the fittings for the series of "Tableaux" which had been proposed, remained half completed: the dresses that were to have been worn, lay scattered on the floor; the carpenter who had come to proceed with his work, gathered up his tools in ominous silence, and departed as quickly as he could. Here lay books still open at the last page read; there was an album, with the drawing of the day before unfinished, and the color-box unclosed by its side. On the deserted billiard-table, the positions of the "cues" and balls showed traces of an interrupted game. Flowers were scattered on the rustic tables in the garden, half made into nosegays, and beginning to wither already. The very dogs wandered in a moody, unsettled way about the house, missing the friendly hands that had fondled and fed them for so many days past, and whining impatiently in the deserted drawing-rooms. The social desolation of the scene was miserably complete in all its aspects.

Immediately after the departure of his guests, Mr. Langley had a long interview with his wife. He repeated to her the conversation which had taken place between Mr. Streatfield and himself, and received from her in return such an account of the conduct of his daughter, under the trial that had befallen her, as filled him with equal astonishment and admiration. It was a new revelation to him of the character of his own child.

"As soon as the violent symptoms had subsided," said Mrs. Langley, in answer to her husband's first inquiries, "as soon as the hysterical fit was subdued, Jane seemed suddenly to assume a new character, to become another person. She begged that the Doctor might be released from his attendance, and that she might be left alone with me and with her sister Clara. When every one else had quitted the room, she continued to sit in the easy-chair where we had at first placed her, covering her face with her hands. She entreated us not to speak to her for a short time, and, except that she shuddered occasionally, sat quite still and silent. When she at last looked up, we were shocked to see the deadly paleness of her face, and the strange alteration that had come over her expression; but she spoke to us so coherently, so solemnly even, that we were amazed; we knew not what to think or what to do; it hardly seemed to be our Jane who was now speaking to us."

"She said that the first feeling of her heart, at that moment, was gratitude on her own account. She thanked God that the terrible discovery had not been made too late, when her married life might have been a life of estrangement and misery. Up to the moment when Mr. Streatfield had uttered that one fatal exclamation, she had loved him, she told us, fondly and fervently; now, no explanation, no repentance (if either were tendered), no[Pg 226] earthly persuasion or command (in case Mr. Streatfield should think himself bound, as a matter of atonement, to hold to his rash engagement), could ever induce her to become his wife."

"Mr. Streatfield will not test her resolution," said Mr. Langley, bitterly; "he deliberately repeated his repudiation of his engagement in this room; nay, more, he—"

"I have something important to say to you from Jane on this point," interrupted Mrs. Langley. "After she had spoken the first few words which I have already repeated to you, she told us that she had been thinking—thinking more calmly perhaps than we could imagine—on all that had happened; on what Mr. Streatfield had said at the dinner-table; on the momentary glance of recognition which she had seen pass between him and her sister Clara, whose accidental absence, during the whole period of Mr. Streatfield's intercourse with us in London, she now remembered and reminded me of. The cause of the fatal error, and the manner in which it had occurred, seemed to be already known to her, as if by intuition. We entreated her to refrain from speaking on the subject for the present; but she answered that it was her duty to speak on it—her duty to propose something which should alleviate the suspense and distress we were all enduring on her account. No words can describe to you her fortitude, her noble endurance—." Mrs. Langley's voice faltered as she pronounced the last words. It was some minutes ere she became sufficiently composed to proceed thus:

"I am charged with a message to you from Jane—I should say, charged with her entreaties, that you will not suspend our intercourse with Mr. Streatfield, or view his conduct in any other than a merciful light—as conduct for which accident and circumstances are alone to blame. After she had given me this message to you, she turned to Clara, who sat weeping by her side, completely overcome; and said that they were to blame, if any one was to be blamed in the matter, for being so much alike as to make all who saw them apart doubt which was Clara and which was Jane. She said this with a faint smile, and an effort to speak playfully, which touched us to the heart. Then, in a tone and manner which I can never forget, she asked her sister—charging her, on their mutual affection and mutual confidence, to answer sincerely—if she had noticed Mr. Streatfield on the day of the levée, and had afterwards remembered him at the dinner-table, as he had noticed and remembered her? It was only after Jane had repeated this appeal, still more earnestly and affectionately, that Clara summoned courage and composure enough to confess that she had noticed Mr. Streatfield on the day of the levée, had thought of him afterwards during his absence from London, and had recognized him at our table, as he had recognized her.

"Is it possible! I own I had not anticipated—not thought for one moment of that," said Mr. Langley.

"Perhaps," continued his wife, "it is best that you should see Jane now, and judge for yourself. For my part, her noble resignation under this great trial, has so astonished and impressed me, that I only feel competent to advise, as she advises, to act as she thinks fit. I begin to think that it is not we who are to guide her, but she who is to guide us."

Mr. Langley lingered irresolute for a few minutes; then quitted the room, and proceeded along to Jane Langley's apartment.

When he knocked at the door, it was opened by Clara. There was an expression partly of confusion, partly of sorrow on her face; and when her father stopped as if to speak to her, she merely pointed into the room, and hurried away without uttering a word.

Mr. Langley had been prepared by his wife for the change that had taken place in his daughter since the day before; but he felt startled, almost overwhelmed, as he now looked on her. One of the poor girl's most prominent personal attractions, from her earliest years, had been the beauty of her complexion; and now, the freshness and the bloom had entirely departed from her face; it seemed absolutely colorless. Her expression, too, appeared to Mr. Langley's eye, to have undergone a melancholy alteration; to have lost its youthfulness suddenly; to have assumed a strange character of firmness and thoughtfulness, which he had never observed in it before. She was sitting by an open window, commanding a lovely view of wide, sunny landscape; a Bible which her mother had given her, lay open on her knees; she was reading in it as her father entered. For the first time in his life, he paused, speechless, as he approached to speak to one of his own children.

"I am afraid I look very ill," she said, holding out her hand to him; "but I am better than I look; I shall be quite well in a day or two. Have you heard my message, father? have you been told?"—

"My love, we will not speak of it yet; we will wait a few days," said Mr. Langley.

"You have always been so kind to me," she continued, in less steady tones, "that I am sure you will let me go on. I have very little to say, but that little must be said now, and then we need never recur to it again. Will you consider all that has happened, as something forgotten? You have heard already what it is that I entreat you to do; will you let him—Mr. Streatfield—" (She stopped, her voice failed for a moment, but she recovered herself again almost immediately.) "Will you let Mr. Streatfield remain here, or recall him if he is gone, and give him an opportunity of explaining himself to my sister? If poor Clara should refuse to see him for my sake, pray do not listen to her. I am sure this is what ought to be done; I have been thinking of it very calmly, and I feel that it is right. And there is something more I have to beg of you, father; it is, that, while Mr. Streatfield is here, you[Pg 227] will allow me to go and stay with my aunt.—You know how fond she is of me. Her house is not a day's journey from home. It is best for every body (much the best for me) that I should not remain here at present; and—and—dear father! I have always been your spoiled child; and I know you will indulge me still. If you will do what I ask you, I shall soon get over this heavy trial. I shall be well again if I am away at my aunt's—if—"

She paused; and putting one trembling arm round her father's neck, hid her face on his breast. For some minutes, Mr. Langley could not trust himself to answer her. There was something, not deeply touching only, but impressive and sublime, about the moral heroism of this young girl, whose heart and mind—hitherto wholly inexperienced in the harder and darker emergencies of life—now rose in the strength of their native purity superior to the bitterest, cruellest trial that either could undergo; whose patience and resignation, called forth for the first time by a calamity which suddenly thwarted the purposes and paralyzed the affections that had been destined to endure for a life, could thus appear at once in the fullest maturity of virtue and beauty. As the father thought on these things; as he vaguely and imperfectly estimated the extent of the daughter's sacrifice; as he reflected on the nature of the affliction that had befallen her—which combined in itself a fatality that none could have foreseen, a fault that could neither be repaired nor resented, a judgment against which there was no appeal—and then remembered how this affliction had been borne, with what words and what actions it had been met, he felt that it would be almost a profanation to judge the touching petition just addressed to him, by the criterion of his worldly doubts and his worldly wisdom. His eye fell on the Bible, still open beneath it; he remembered the little child who was set in the midst of the disciples, as teacher and example to all; and when at length he spoke in answer to his daughter, it was not to direct or to advise, but to comfort and comply.

They delayed her removal for a few days, to see if she faltered in her resolution, if her bodily weakness increased; but she never wavered; nothing in her appearance changed, either for better or for worse. A week after the startling scene at the dinner-table, she was living in the strictest retirement in the house of her aunt.

About the period of her departure, a letter was received from Mr. Streatfield. It was little more than a recapitulation of what he had already said to Mr. Langley—expressed, however, on this occasion, in stronger and, at the same time, in more respectful terms. The letter was answered briefly: he was informed that nothing had, as yet, been determined on, but that the next communication would bring him a final reply.

Two months passed. During that time, Jane Langley was frequently visited at her aunt's house, by her father and mother. She still remained calm and resolved; still looked pale and thoughtful, as at first. Doctors were consulted: they talked of a shock to the nervous system; of great hope from time, and their patient's strength of mind; and of the necessity of acceding to her wishes in all things. Then, the advice of the aunt was sought. She was a woman of an eccentric, masculine character, who had herself experienced a love-disappointment in early life, and had never married. She gave her opinion unreservedly and abruptly, as she always gave it. "Do as Jane tells you!" said the old lady, severely; "that poor child has more moral courage and determination than all the rest of you put together! I know better than any body what a sacrifice she has had to make; but she has made it, and made it nobly—like a heroine, as some people would say; like a good, high-minded, courageous girl, as I say! Do as she tells you! Let that poor, selfish fool of a man have his way, and marry her sister—he has made one mistake already about a face—see if he doesn't find out, some day, that he has made another, about a wife! Let him!—Jane is too good for him, or for any man! Leave her to me; let her stop here; she shan't lose by what happened! You know this place is mine—I mean it is to be hers, when I'm dead. You know I've got some money—I shall leave it to her. I've made my will: it's all done and settled! Go back home; send for the man, and tell Clara to marry him without any more fuss! You wanted my opinion—There it is for you!"

At last Mr. Langley decided. The important letter was written, which recalled Mr. Streatfield to Langley Hall. As Jane had foreseen, Clara at first refused to hold any communication with him; but a letter from her sister, and the remonstrances of her father, soon changed her resolution. There was nothing in common between the twin-sisters but their personal resemblance. Clara had been guided all her life by the opinions of others, and she was guided by them now.

Once permitted the opportunity of pleading his cause, Mr. Streatfield did not neglect his own interests. It would be little to our purpose to describe the doubts and difficulties which delayed at first the progress of his second courtship—pursued as it was under circumstances, not only extraordinary, but unprecedented. It is no longer with him, or with Clara Langley, that the interest of our story is connected. Suffice it to say, that he ultimately overcame all the young lady's scruples; and that, a few months afterwards, some of Mr. Langley's intimate friends found themselves again assembled round his table as wedding-guests, and congratulating Mr. Streatfield on his approaching union with Clara, as they had already congratulated him, scarcely a year back, on his approaching union with Jane!

The social ceremonies of the wedding-day were performed soberly—almost sadly.[Pg 228] Some of the guests (especially the unmarried ladies) thought that Miss Clara had allowed herself to be won too easily—others were picturing to themselves the situation of the poor girl who was absent; and contributed little toward the gayety of the party. On this occasion, however, nothing occurred to interrupt the proceedings; the marriage took place; and, immediately after it, Mr. Streatfield and his bride started for a tour on the Continent.

On their departure, Jane Langley returned home. She made no reference whatever to her sister's marriage; and no one mentioned it in her presence. Still the color did not return to her cheek, or the old gayety to her manner. The shock that she had suffered had left its traces on her for life. But there was no evidence that she was sinking under the remembrances which neither time nor resolution could banish. The strong, pure heart had undergone a change, but not a deterioration. All that had been brilliant in her character was gone; but all that was noble in it remained. Never had her intercourse with her family and her friends been so affectionate and so kindly as it was now.

When, after a long absence, Mr. Streatfield and his wife returned to England, it was observed, at her first meeting with them, that the momentary confusion and embarrassment were on their side, not on hers. During their stay at Langley Hall, she showed not the slightest disposition to avoid them. No member of the family welcomed them more cordially, entered into all their plans and projects more readily, or bade them farewell with a kinder or better grace, when they departed for their own home.

Our tale is nearly ended: what remains of it, must comprise the history of many years in a few words.

Time passed on; and Death and Change told of its lapse among the family at Langley Hall. Five years after the events above related, Mr. Langley died; and was followed to the grave, shortly afterwards, by his wife. Of their two sons, the eldest was rising into good practice at the bar; the youngest had become attaché to a foreign embassy. Their third daughter was married, and living at the family seat of her husband, in Scotland. Mr. and Mrs. Streatfield had children of their own, now, to occupy their time and absorb their care. The career of life was over for some—the purposes of life had altered for others—Jane Langley alone, still remained unchanged.

She now lived entirely with her aunt. At intervals—as their worldly duties and avocations permitted them—the other members of her family, or one or two intimate friends, came to the house. Offers of marriage were made to her, but were all declined. The first, last love of her girlish days—abandoned as a hope, and crushed as a passion; living only as a quiet grief, as a pure remembrance—still kept its watch, as guardian and defender, over her heart. Years passed on and worked no change in the sad uniformity of her life, until the death of her aunt left her mistress of the house in which she had hitherto been a guest. Then it was observed that she made fewer and fewer efforts to vary the tenor of her existence, to forget her old remembrances for awhile in the society of others. Such invitations as reached her from relations and friends were more frequently declined than accepted. She was growing old herself now; and, with each advancing year, the busy pageant of the outer world presented less and less that could attract her eye.

So she began to surround herself, in her solitude, with the favorite books that she had studied, with the favorite music that she had played, in the days of her hopes and her happiness. Every thing that was associated, however slightly, with that past period, now acquired a character of inestimable value in her eyes, as aiding her mind to seclude itself more and more strictly in the sanctuary of its early recollections. Was it weakness in her to live thus; to abandon the world and the world's interests, as one who had no hope, or part in either? Had she earned the right, by the magnitude and resolution of her sacrifice, thus to indulge in the sad luxury of fruitless remembrance? Who shall say!—who shall presume to decide that cannot think with her thoughts, and look back with her recollections!

Thus she lived—alone, and yet not lonely; without hope, but with no despair; separate and apart from the world around her, except when she approached it by her charities to the poor, and her succor to the afflicted; by her occasional interviews with the surviving members of her family and a few old friends, when they sought her in her calm retreat; and by the little presents which she constantly sent to brothers' and sisters' children, who worshipped, as their invisible good genius, "the kind lady" whom most of them had never seen. Such was her existence throughout the closing years of her life: such did it continue—calm and blameless—to the last.

Reader, when you are told, that what is impressive and pathetic in the Drama of Human Life has passed with a past age of Chivalry and Romance, remember Jane Langley, and quote in contradiction the story of the Twin Sisters!

When about nine years old, Southey attended a school at Bristol, kept by one Williams, a Welshman, the one, he says, of all his schoolmasters, whom he remembered with the kindliest feelings. This Williams used sometimes to infuse more passion into his discipline than was becoming, of which Southey records a most ridiculous illustration. One of his schoolmates—a Creole, with a shade of African color and negro features—was remarkable for his stupidity. Williams, after flogging him one day, made him pay a half-penny for the use of the rod, because he required it so much oftener than any other boy in school.

From Fraser's Magazine.

ALFIERI.

Vittorio Alfieri was born at Asti, a city of Piedmont, on the 17th of January, 1749,—the year in which his great contemporary, Goëthe, first saw the light. His father, Antonio Alfieri, was a nobleman of high rank in his own country; his mother, whose name was Monica Maillard di Tournon, was of Savoyard descent. At the time of Vittorio's birth his father was sixty years of age; and as until then he had had no son, the entrance of the future poet into the world was to him a subject of unspeakable delight: but his happiness was of short duration, for he overheated himself one day by going to see the child at a neighboring village where he was at nurse, and died of the illness that ensued, his son being at the time less than a year old. The countess, his widow, did not long remain so, as she very shortly married again, her third husband (she was a widow when the count married her) being the Cavalier Giacinto Alfieri, a distant member of the same family.

When about six years old, Alfieri was placed under the care of a priest called Don Ivaldi, who taught him writing, arithmetic, Cornelius Nepos, and Phædrus. He soon discovered, however, that the worthy priest was an ignoramus, and congratulates himself on having escaped from his hands at the age of nine, otherwise he believes that he should have been an absolute and irreclaimable dunce. His mother and father-in-law were constantly repeating the maxim then so popular among the Italian nobility, that it was not necessary that a gentleman should be a doctor. It was at this early age that he was first attacked by that melancholy which gradually assumed entire dominion over him, and throughout life remained a most prominent feature in his character. When only seven years of age, he made an attempt to poison himself by eating some noxious herbs, being impelled to this strange action by an undefined desire to die. He was well punished for his silliness by being made very unwell, and by being, moreover, shut up in his room for some days. No punishment for his youthful transgressions was, however, so effectual as being sent in a nightcap to a neighboring church. "Who knows," says he, "whether I am not indebted to that blessed nightcap for having turned out one of the most truthful men I ever knew?"

In 1758, his paternal uncle and guardian, seeing what little progress he was making, determined to send him to the Turin Academy, and accordingly he started in the month of July.

"I cried (he says, in his autobiography) during the whole of the first stage. On arriving at the post-house, I got out of the carriage while the horses were being changed, and feeling thirsty, instead of asking for a glass, or requesting any body to fetch me some water, I marched up to the horse-trough, dipped the corner of my cap in the water, and drank to my heart's content. The postilions, seeing this, told my attendant, who ran up and began rating me soundly; but I told him that travellers ought to accustom themselves to such things, and that no good soldier would drink in any other manner. Where I fished up these Achilles-like ideas I know not, as my mother had always educated me with the greatest tenderness, and with really ludicrous care for my health."

He describes his character at this period, where he ends what he calls the epoch of childhood, and begins that of adolescence, as having been as follows:

"I was taciturn and placid for the most part, but occasionally very talkative and lively; in fact, I generally ran from one extreme to another. I was obstinate and restive when force was exerted, most docile under kind treatment; restrained more by fear of being scolded than by any thing else; susceptible of shame even to excess, and inflexible when rubbed against the grain."

He entered the Academy on the 1st of August. It was a magnificent quadrangular building, of which two of the sides were occupied by the King's Theatre and the Royal Archives; another side was appropriated to the younger students, who composed what were called the second and third apartments, while the fourth contained the first apartment, or the older students, who were mostly foreigners, besides the king's pages, to the number of twenty or twenty-five. Alfieri was at first placed in the third apartment, and the fourth class, from which he was promoted to the third at the end of three months. The master of this class was a certain Don Degiovanni, a priest even more ignorant than his good friend Ivaldi. It may be supposed that under such auspices he did not make much progress in his studies. Let us hear his own account:

"Being thus an ass, in the midst of asses, and under an ass, I translated Cornelius Nepos, some of Virgil's Eclogues, and such-like; we wrote stupid, nonsensical themes, so that in any well-directed school we should have been a wretched fourth class. I was never at the bottom; emulation spurred me on until I surpassed or equalled the head boy; but as soon as I reached the top, I fell back into a state of torpor. I was perhaps to be excused, as nothing could equal the dryness and insipidity of our studies. It is true that we translated Cornelius Nepos; but none of us, probably not even the master himself, knew who the men were whose lives we were translating, nor their countries, nor the times in which they lived, nor the governments under which they flourished, nor even what a government was. All our ideas were contracted, false, or confused; the master had no object in view; his pupils took not the slightest interest in what they learned. In short, all were as bad as bad could be; no one looked after us, or if they did, knew what they were about."

In November, 1759, he was promoted to the humanity class, the master of which was a[Pg 230] man of some learning. His emulation was excited in this class by his meeting a boy who could repeat 600 lines of the Georgics without a single mistake, while he could never get beyond 400. These defeats almost suffocated him with anger, and he often burst out crying, and occasionally abused his rival most violently. He found some consolation, however, for his inferior memory, in always writing the best themes. About this time he obtained possession of a copy of Ariosto in four volumes, which he rather believes he purchased, a volume at a time, with certain half-fowls that were given the students on Sundays, his first Ariosto thus costing him two fowls in the space of four weeks. He much regrets that he is not certain on the point, feeling anxious to know whether he imbibed his first draughts of poetry at the expense of his stomach. Notwithstanding that he was at the head of the humanity class, and could translate the Georgics into Italian prose, he found great difficulty in understanding the easiest of Italian poets. The master, however, soon perceived him reading the book by stealth, and confiscated it, leaving the future poet deprived for the present of all poetical guidance.

During this period he was in a wretched state of health, being constantly attacked by various extraordinary diseases. He describes himself as not growing at all, and as resembling a very delicate and pale wax taper. In 1760 he passed in the class of rhetoric, and succeeded, moreover, in recovering his Ariosto, but read very little of it, partly from the difficulty he found in understanding it, and partly because the continued breaks in the story disgusted him. As to Tasso, he had never even heard his name. He obtained a few of Metastasio's plays as libretti of the Opera at carnival time, and was much pleased with them, and also with some of Goldoni's comedies that were lent to him.

"But the dramatic genius, of which the germs perhaps existed in me, was soon buried or extinguished for want of food, of encouragement, and every thing else. In short, my ignorance and that of my instructors, and the carelessness of every body in every thing exceeded all conception."

The following year he was promoted into the class of philosophy, which met in the adjoining university. The following is his description of the course:

"This school of peripatetic philosophy was held after dinner. During the first half-hour we wrote out the lecture at the dictation of the professor, and in the subsequent three-quarters of an hour, when he commented upon it, Heaven knows how, in Latin, we scholars wrapped ourselves up comfortably in our mantles, and went fast asleep; and among the assembled philosophers, not a sound was heard except the drawling voice of the professor himself, half asleep, and the various notes of the snorers, who formed a most delightful concert in every possible key."

During his holidays this year, his uncle took him to the Opera for the first time, where he heard the Mercato di Malmantile. The music produced a most extraordinary effect upon him, and for several weeks afterwards he remained immersed in a strange but not unpleasing melancholy, followed by an absolute loathing of his usual studies. Music all through life affected him most powerfully, and he states that his tragedies were almost invariably planned by him when under its influence. It was about this time that he composed his first sonnet, which was made up of whole or mutilated verses of Metastasio and Ariosto, the only two Italian poets of whom he knew any thing. It was in praise of a certain lady to whom his uncle was paying his addresses, and whom he himself admired. Several persons, including the lady herself, praised it, so that he already fancied himself a poet. His uncle, however, a military man, and no votary of the Muses, laughed at him so much, that his poetical vein was soon dried up, and he did not renew his attempts in the line till he was more than twenty-five years old. "How many good or bad verses did my uncle suffocate, together with my first-born sonnet!"

He next studied physics and ethics—the former under the celebrated Beccaria, but not a single definition remained in his head. These studies, however, as well as those in civil and canon law, which he had commenced, were interrupted by a violent illness, which rendered it necessary for him to have his head shaved, and to wear a wig. His companions, at first, tormented him greatly about this wig, and used to tear it from his head; but he soon succeeded in appeasing the public indignation, by being always the first to throw the unhappy ornament in question up in the air, calling it by every opprobrious epithet. From that time he remained the least persecuted wig-wearer among the two or three who were in this predicament.

He now took lessons on the piano, and in geography, fencing, and dancing. He imbibed the most invincible dislike to the latter, which he attributed to the grimaces and extraordinary contortions of the master, a Frenchman just arrived from Paris. He dates from this period that extreme hatred of the French nation which remained with him through life, and which was one of the strangest features in his character. His uncle died this year (1763), and as he was now fourteen, the age at which, by the laws of Piedmont, minors are freed from the care of their guardians, and are placed under curators, who leave them masters of their income, and can only prevent the alienation of their real estates, he found himself possessed of considerable property, which was still farther increased by his uncle's fortune. Having obtained the degree of master of arts, by passing a public examination in logic, physics, and geometry, he was rewarded by being allowed to attend the riding-school, a thing he had always ardently desired. He[Pg 231] became an expert horseman, and attributes to this exercise the recovery of his health, which now rapidly improved.

"Having buried my uncle, changed my guardian into a curator, obtained my master's degree, got rid of my attendant Andrea, and mounted a steed, it is incredible how proud I became. I told the authorities plainly that I was sick of studying law, and that I would not go on with it. After a consultation, they determined to remove me into the first apartment, which I entered on the 8th May, 1763."

He now led an extremely idle life, being little looked after. A crowd of flatterers, the usual attendants upon wealth, sprung up around him, and he indulged in amusements and dissipations of every kind. A temporary fit of industry, which lasted for two or three months, came over him, and he plunged deeply into the thirty-six volumes of Fleury's Ecclesiastical History. Soon, however, he resumed his old course, and conducted himself so badly that the authorities found it necessary to place him under arrest, and he remained for some months a prisoner in his own apartment, obstinately refusing to make any apology, and leading the life of a wild beast, never putting on his clothes, and spending most of his time in sleep. He was at length released, on the occasion of his sister Giulia's marriage to the Count Giacinto di Cumiana, in May, 1764.

On regaining his former position he bought his first horse, and soon afterwards another, on the pretence of its being delicate. He next purchased two carriage horses, and went on thus till in less than a year he had eight in his possession. He also had an elegant carriage built for him, but used it very seldom, because his friends were obliged to walk, and he shrunk from offending them by a display of ostentation. His horses, however, were at the service of all, and as his love for them could not excite any feelings of envy, he took the greatest delight in them.

It was now that he first felt the symptoms of love, excited by a lady who was the wife of an elder brother of some intimate friends of his, to whom he was on a visit. His transient passion, however, soon passed away, without leaving any trace behind it. The period had now arrived for his leaving the academy, and in May, 1766, he was nominated ensign in the provincial regiment of Asti, which met only twice a-year for a few days, thus allowing ample opportunity for doing nothing; the only thing, he says, he had made up his mind to do. But he soon got tired of even this slight restraint. "I could not adapt myself to that chain of graduated dependence which is called subordination, and which although the soul of military discipline, could never be the soul of a future tragic poet." He therefore obtained permission, though with great difficulty, to accompany an English Catholic tutor, who was about to visit Rome and Naples with two of his fellow-students. He chooses this moment for commencing the epoch of youth, which he describes as embracing ten years of travel and dissipation.

"Here the librarian placed in my hands a manuscript of Petrarch, but, like a true Goth, I threw it aside, saying it was nothing to me. The fact was, I had a certain spite against the aforesaid Petrarch; for having met with a copy of his works some years before, when I was a philosopher, I found on opening it at various places by chance that I could not understand the meaning in the least; accordingly I joined with the French and other ignorant pretenders in condemning him, and as I considered him a dull and prosy writer, I treated his invaluable manuscript in the manner above described."

At this time he always spoke and wrote in French, and read nothing but French books.

"As I knew still less of Italian, I gathered the necessary fruit of my birth in an amphibious country, and of the precious education I had received."

They proceeded afterwards to Florence, Rome, and Naples. At the latter place he obtained permission from his own court, through the intercession of the Sardinian minister, to leave the tutor, and travel for the future alone. Attended only by his faithful servant Elia, who had taken the place of the worthless Andrea, and for whom he felt a great affection, he returned to Rome, and had the honor of kissing the Pope's toe. The pontiff's manner pleased him so much, that he felt no repugnance to going through the ceremony, although he had read Fleury, and knew the real value of the aforesaid toe.

Having obtained leave to travel for another year, he determined to visit France, England, and Holland. He went first to Venice, and there was assailed by that melancholy, ennui, and restlessness, peculiar to his character.

"I spent many days without leaving the house, my chief employment being to stand at the window, and make signs, and hold brief dialogues with a young lady opposite; the rest of the day I spent in sleeping, in thinking of I know not what, and generally crying, I knew not why."

All through life he was subject to these periodical fits, which came on every spring, and materially influenced his powers of composition.

He proceeded afterwards to France, expecting to be delighted with Paris; but on arriving there he found it so unlike what he had anticipated, that he burst into a violent fit of passion at having made so much haste, undergone so much fatigue, and had his fancy excited to such a pitch of frenzy, only to plunge into that filthy sewer, as he calls it! His anger is quite ludicrous; but he, notwithstanding, remained there five months, during which time he was presented to Louis XV. at Versailles, but the cold reception he met with greatly annoyed him.[Pg 232]

"Although I had been told that the king did not speak to ordinary foreigners, and although I did not care much for his notice, yet I could not swallow the Jove-like superciliousness of the monarch, who surveyed from head to foot the people presented to him, without appearing to receive the slightest impression. It was as if somebody said to a giant, 'I beg to present an ant to you;' and he were either to stare or to smile, or to say, it may be, 'Oh, what a little creature!'"

He was as much delighted with England as he had been disgusted with France. He falls into perfect raptures when speaking of our national character and our national institutions, and regrets that it was not in his power to remain here for ever. In June, 1768, he went to Holland, and at the Hague fell violently in love with the wife of a rich gentleman whom he knew. When the lady was obliged to go into Switzerland, he was thrown into such a state of frenzy that he attempted to commit suicide, by tearing off the bandages from the place where he had had himself bled, under pretence of illness. His servant, however, suspected his intentions, and prevented him from carrying his resolution into effect. He gradually recovered his spirits, and determined to return to Italy. On reaching Turin, he was seized by a desire to study. The book in which he took most delight was Plutarch's Lives:

"Some of these, such as Timoleon, Cæsar, Brutus, Pelopidas, and Cato, I read four or five times over, with such transports of shouting, crying, and fury, that any person in the next room must have thought me mad. On reading any particular anecdotes of those great men, I used often to spring to my feet in the greatest agitation, and quite beside myself, shedding tears of grief and rage at seeing myself born in Piedmont, and in an age and under a government where nothing noble could be said or done, and where it was almost useless to think or to feel."

His brother-in-law now strongly urged him to marry, and he consented, although unwillingly, that negotiations should be entered into on his behalf with the family of a young, noble, and rich heiress, whose beautiful black eyes would, doubtless, soon have driven Plutarch out of his head. The end, however, was that she married somebody else, to Alfieri's internal satisfaction. "Had I been tied down by a wife and children, the Muses would certainly have bid me good bye."

The moment he felt himself free he determined to start again on his travels. On reaching Vienna, the Sardinian minister offered to introduce him to Metastasio; but he cared nothing at that time for any Italian author, and, moreover, had taken a great dislike to the poet, from having seen him make a servile genuflexion to the Empress Maria Theresa in the Imperial Gardens at Schönbrunn. On entering the dominions of Frederick the Great, he was made extremely indignant by the military despotism that reigned there. When presented to the king he did not appear in uniform.

"The minister asked me the reason of this, seeing that I was in the service of my own sovereign. I replied, 'Because there are already enough uniforms here.' The king said to me his usual four words; I watched him attentively, fixing my eyes respectfully on his, and thanked Heaven that I was not born his slave."

Denmark, Sweden, and Russia, were then successively visited by him. He had heard so much of the latter country, that when he reached St. Petersburgh his expectations were wrought up to a great pitch.

"But, alas! no sooner did I set foot in this Asiatic encampment of tents, than I called to mind Rome, Genoa, Venice, and Florence, and began to laugh. The longer I remained in the country, the more were my first impressions confirmed, and I left it with the precious conviction that it was not worth seeing."

He refused to be presented to the celebrated female autocrat, Catherine II., whom he stigmatizes as "a philosophical Clytemnestra."

He next visited England for the second time, arriving at the end of 1770. During his stay in London, which lasted for seven months, he became involved in an affair which excited an extraordinary sensation at the time, and which is even remembered by the scandal-mongers of the present day. He formed the acquaintance of the wife of an officer of high rank in the Guards, and this intimacy soon assumed a criminal character. Her husband, a man of a very jealous temperament, suspected his wife's infidelity, and had them watched. On finding his suspicions confirmed, he challenged Alfieri, and they fought a duel with swords in the Green Park, in which the future poet was wounded in the arm. The husband pressed for a divorce, and Alfieri announced his intention of marrying the lady as soon as she was free; but, to his horror, she confessed to him one day, what was already known to the public through the newspapers, although he was ignorant of it, that before she knew him she had been engaged in an intrigue with a groom of her husband! Despite this discovery, it was some time before his affection for her abated; but at length, on her announcing her determination to enter a convent in France, he quitted her at Rochester, and left this country himself almost immediately afterwards. He went to Paris, and there bought a collection of the principal Italian poets and prose-writers in thirty-six volumes, which from that time became his inseparable companions, although he did not make much use of them for two or three years. However, he now learned to know at least something of the six great luminaries, Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, Boccaccio, and Machiavelli.

He next proceeded to Spain and Portugal. At Lisbon he formed the acquaintance of the Abate Tommaso di Caluso, younger brother of the Sardinian minister. The society of this[Pg 233] distinguished man produced the most beneficial effect on him. One evening, when the Abate was reading to him the fine Ode to Fortune of Alessandro Guidi, a poet whose name he had never even heard, some of the stanzas produced such extraordinary transports in him, that the former told him that he was born to write verses. This sudden impulse of Apollo, as he calls it, was however only a momentary flush, which was soon extinguished, and remained buried for a long time to come.

He now bent his steps homewards, and reached Turin in May, 1772, after an absence of three years. He took a magnificent house in the Piazza di San Carlo, furnished it sumptuously, and commenced leading a merry life with about a dozen friends, who formed a society, which met at his house every week. This Society was governed by strict rules, one of which was that all should contribute something in writing for their reciprocal amusement; these contributions being placed in a chest, of which the president for the time being kept the key, and read aloud by him at their meetings. They were all written in French, and Alfieri mentions one of his which was very successful. It described the Deity at the last judgment demanding from every soul an account of itself, and the characters he drew were all those of well-known individuals, both male and female, in Turin.

It was not long before he fell in love for the third time, the object of his passion now being a lady some years older than himself, and of somewhat doubtful reputation. For the space of nearly two years she exercised unbounded dominion over him. Feeling that he could not support the fetters of Venus and of Mars at one and the same time, he with some little difficulty obtained permission to throw up his commission in the army.

While attending at his mistress's bedside, during an illness by which she was attacked in January, 1744, the idea first struck him of writing a dramatic sketch. He wrote it without the slightest plan, in the form of a dialogue between three persons, called respectively, Photinus, Lachesis, and Cleopatra. He gives a specimen of it in a note, and it is certainly not of the very highest order of merit. On the recovery of the lady he placed it under the cushion of her couch, where it remained forgotten for a year, and thus were the first fruits of his tragic genius brooded over, as it were, by the lady and all who chanced to sit upon the couch.

At length he threw off the chains which had so long bound him. The exertion was, however, so great that he was actually obliged to get his servant Elia to tie him to his chair, that he might not quit the house. When his friends came to see him, he dropped his dressing gown over the bandages, so that his forced imprisonment was not perceived. His first appearance in public was at the carnival of 1775, where he dressed himself up as Apollo, and recited at the public ball at the theatre a masquerade he had composed on the subject of love, twanging a guitar vigorously all the time. He was afterwards heartily ashamed of this freak, which he wonders he could ever have been guilty of. An ardent desire for glory now seized him, and after some months spent in constant poetical studies, and in fingering grammars and dictionaries, he succeeded in producing his first tragedy; which, like the sketch already mentioned, he entitled Cleopatra. It was performed at Turin, on the 16th June, 1775, at the Carignan Theatre, and was followed by a comic after-piece, also written by him, called The Poets, in which he introduced himself under the name of Giusippus, and was the first to ridicule his own tragedy; which, he says, differed from those of his poetical rivals, inasmuch as their productions were the mature offspring of an erudite incapacity, whilst his was the premature child of a not unpromising ignorance. These two pieces were performed with considerable success for two successive evenings, when he withdrew them from the stage, ashamed at having so rashly exposed himself to the public. He never considered this Cleopatra worthy of preservation, and it is not published with his other works. From this moment, however, he felt every vein swollen with the most burning thirst for real theatrical laurels, and here terminates the epoch of Youth and commences that of Manhood.

Up to this point we have seen Alfieri's character as formed by nature, and before it was influenced by study, or softened down by intercourse with the world. We have seen him ardent, restless beyond all belief, passionate, oppressed by unaccountable melancholy, acting under the toiling impulse of the moment, whether in love or hate, and, what is of extreme disadvantage to him as respects the career he is about to enter upon, suffering from a deficient education. We have now to see how he overcame all the obstacles arising from his natural character, and from a youth wasted in idleness and dissipation; and how he gradually won his way from victory to victory, until he at length attained the noble and enviable eminence which is assigned to him by universal consent as the greatest, we had almost said the only, modern Italian poet.

He describes the capital with which he commenced his undertaking as consisting in a resolute, indomitable, and extremely obstinate mind, and a heart full to overflowing with every species of emotion, particularly love, with all its furies, and a profound and ferocious hatred of tyranny. To this was added a faint recollection of various French tragedies. On the other hand, he was almost entirely ignorant of the rules of tragic art, and understood his own language most imperfectly. The whole was enveloped in a thick covering of presumption, or rather petulance, and a violence of character so great as to render it most difficult for him to appreciate truth. He considers these elements better adapted for forming a bad monarch than a good author.[Pg 234]

He began by studying grammar vigorously; and his first attempt was to put into Italian two tragedies, entitled Filippo and Polinice, which he had some time before written in French prose. At the same time he read Tasso, Ariosto, Dante, and Petrarch, making notes as he proceeded, and occupying a year in the task. He then commenced reading Latin with a tutor; and shortly afterwards went to Tuscany in order to acquire a really good Italian idiom. He returned to Turin in October, 1776, and there composed several sonnets, having in the meantime made considerable progress with several of his tragedies. The next year he again went to Tuscany, and on reaching Florence in October, intending to remain there a month, an event occurred which—to use his own words—"fixed and enchained me there for many years; an event which, happily for me, determined me to expatriate myself for ever, and which by fastening upon me new, self-sought, and golden chains, enabled me to acquire that real literary freedom, without which I should never have done any good, if so be that I have done good."

Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, was at that time residing in Florence, in company with his wife, the Countess of Albany, whose maiden name was Louisa Stolberg, of the princely house of that name. The following is Alfieri's description of her:—

"The sweet fire of her very dark eyes, added (a thing of rare occurrence) to a very white skin and fair hair, gave an irresistible brilliancy to her beauty. She was twenty-five years of age, was much attached to literature and the fine arts, had an angelic temper, and, in spite of her wealth, was in the most painful domestic circumstances, so that she could not be as happy as she deserved. How many reasons for loving her!"

Her husband appears to have been of a most violent and ungovernable temper, and to have always treated her in the harshest manner.—No wonder, then, that an impassioned and susceptible nature like Alfieri's should have been attracted by such charms! A friendship of the closest and most enduring description ensued between them; and although a certain air of mystery always surrounded the story of their mutual attachment, there is no reason whatever to suppose that it partook in the slightest degree of a dishonorable character.

Instead of finding his passion for the Countess an obstacle to literary glory and useful occupations, as had always been the case previously with him, when under the influence of similar emotions, he found that it incited and spurred him on to every good work, and accordingly he abandoned himself, without restraint, to its indulgence. That he might have no inducement to return to his own country, he determined to dissolve every tie that united him to it, and with that intent made an absolute donation for life of the whole of his estates, both in fee and freehold, to his natural heir, his sister Giulia, wife of the Count di Cumiana. He merely stipulated for an annual pension, and a certain sum in ready money, the whole amounting to about one-half of the value of his property. The negotiations were finally brought to a conclusion in November, 1778. He also sold his furniture and plate which he had left in Turin; and, unfortunately for himself, invested almost the whole of the money he now found himself possessed of in French life annuities. At one period of the negotiations he was in great fear lest he should lose every thing, and revolved in his mind what profession he should adopt in case he should be left penniless.

"The art that presented itself to me as the best for gaining a living by, was that of a horse-breaker, in which I consider myself a proficient. It is certainly one of the least servile, and it appeared to me to be more compatible than any other with that of a poet, for it is much easier to write tragedies in a stable than in a court."

He now commenced living in the simplest style, dismissed all his servants, save one; sold or gave away all his horses, and wore the plainest clothing. He continued his studies without intermission, and by the beginning of 1782 had nearly finished the whole of the twelve tragedies which he had from the first made up his mind to write, and not to exceed. These were entitled respectively Filippo, Polinice, Antigone, Agamennone, Oreste, Don Garzia, Virginia, La Congiura de' Pazzi, Maria Stuarda, Ottavia, Timoleone and Rosmunda.—Happening, however, to read the Merope of Maffei, then considered the best Italian tragedy, he felt so indignant, that he set to work, and very shortly produced his tragedy of that name, which was soon followed by the Saul, which is incomparably the finest of his works.

The Countess had obtained permission at the end of 1780 to leave her husband, in consequence of the brutal treatment she experienced at his hands, and to retire to Rome. It was not long before Alfieri followed her, and took up his habitation there also. At the end of 1782, his Antigone was performed by a company of amateurs—he himself being one—before an audience consisting of all the rank and fashion of Rome. Its success was unequivocal, and he felt so proud of his triumph, that he determined to send four of his tragedies to press, getting his friend Gori, at Siena, to superintend the printing; and they were accordingly published.

The intimacy between Alfieri and the Countess now inflamed the anger of Charles Edward and his brother, Cardinal York, to such a pitch, that Alfieri found it prudent to leave Rome, which he did in May, 1783, in a state of bitter anguish. He first made pilgrimages to the tombs of Dante, Petrarch, and Ariosto, at Ravenna, Arquà, and Ferrara; at each of which he spent some time in dreaming, praying, and weeping, at the same time pouring forth a perfect stream of impassioned poetry. On getting to Siena, he superintended personally the printing[Pg 235] of six more of his tragedies, and for the first time felt all the cares of authorship, being driven nearly distracted by the sad realities of censors, both spiritual and temporal, correctors of the press, compositors, pressmen, &c., and the worry he experienced brought on a sharp attack of gout. On recovering, he determined to start off once more on his travels, making as a plea his desire to purchase a stud of horses in England, his equestrian propensities having returned with violence. He accordingly left his tragedies, both published and unpublished, to shift for themselves, and proceeded to England, where, in a few weeks, he bought no less than fourteen horses. That being the exact number of the tragedies he had written, he used to amuse himself by saying, "For each tragedy you have got a horse," in reference to the punishment inflicted on naughty schoolboys in Italy, where the culprit is mounted on the shoulders of another boy, while the master lays on the cane.

He experienced almost endless trouble and difficulty in conveying his acquisitions safely back to Italy. The account he gives of the passage of the Alps by Mount Cenis, from Lanslebourg to the Novalese, is really quite romantic; and he compares himself to Hannibal on the occasion, but says that if the passage of the latter cost him a great deal of vinegar, it cost him (Alfieri) no small quantity of wine, as the whole party concerned in conveying the horses over the mountain, guides, farriers, grooms, and adjutants, drank like fishes.

On reaching Turin, he was present at a performance of his Virginia at the same theatre where, nine years before, his early play of Cleopatra had been acted. He shortly received intelligence that the Countess had been permitted to leave Rome and to go to Switzerland. He could not refrain from following her, and accordingly rejoined her at Colmar, a city of Alsace, after a separation of sixteen months. The sight of her whom he loved so dearly again awakened his poetic genius, and gave birth, at almost one and the same moment, to his three tragedies of Agide, Sofonisba, and Mirra, despite his previous resolve to write no more. When obliged to leave the Countess, he returned to Italy, but the following year again visited her, remaining in Alsace when she proceeded to Paris. She happened to mention in a letter that she had been much pleased with seeing Voltaire's Brutus performed on the stage. This excited his emulation. "What!" he exclaimed, "Brutuses written by a Voltaire? I'll write Brutuses, and two at once, moreover, time will show whether such subjects for tragedy are better adapted for me or for a plebeian-born Frenchman, who for more than sixty years subscribed himself Voltaire, Gentleman in Ordinary to the King." Accordingly he set to work, and planned on the spot his Bruto Primo and Bruto Secondo; after which he once more renewed his vow to Apollo to write no more tragedies. About this period he also sketched his Abel, which he called by the whimsical title of a Tramelogedy. He next went to Paris, and made arrangements with the celebrated Didot for printing the whole of his tragedies in six volumes. On returning to Alsace, in company with the Countess, he was joined by his old friend the Abate di Caluso, who brought with him a letter from his mother, containing proposals for his marriage with a rich young lady of Asti, whose name was not mentioned. Alfieri told the Abate, smilingly, that he must decline the proffered match, and had not even the curiosity to inquire who the lady was. Shortly afterwards he was attacked by a dangerous illness, which reduced him to the point of death. On recovering, he went with his friends to Kehl, and was so much pleased with the printing establishment of the well-known Beaumarchais, that he resolved to have the whole of his works, with the exception of his tragedies, which were in Didot's hands, printed there; and accordingly, by August, 1789, all his writings, both in prose and poetry, were printed.

In the mean time, the Countess of Albany had heard of the death of her husband, which took place at Rome, on the 31st January, 1788. This event set her entirely free, and it is generally believed that she was shortly afterwards united in marriage to Alfieri; but the fact was never known, and to the last the poet preserved the greatest mystery on the subject.

Paris now became their regular residence, and it was not long before the revolutionary troubles commenced. In April, 1791, they determined to pay a visit to England, where the Countess had never been. They remained here some months, and on their embarking at Dover on their return, Alfieri chanced to notice among the people collected on the beach to see the vessel off, the very lady, his intrigue with whom twenty years before had excited so great a sensation. He did not speak to her, but saw that she recognized him. Accordingly, on reaching Calais, he wrote to her to inquire into her present situation. He gives her reply at full length in his Memoirs. It is in French; and we regret that its length precludes us from giving it here, as it is a very remarkable production. It indicates a decisive and inflexible firmness of character, very unlike what is usually met with in her sex.

After visiting Holland and Belgium, Alfieri and the Countess returned to Paris. In March, 1792, he received intelligence of his mother's death. In the mean time the war with the emperor commenced, and matters gradually got worse and worse. Alfieri witnessed the events of the terrible 10th of August, when the Tuileries was taken by the mob after a bloody conflict, and Louis XVI. virtually ceased to reign. Seeing the great danger to which they would be exposed if they remained longer in Paris, they determined on a hasty flight; and after procuring the necessary passports, started on the 18th of the same month. They had a narrow escape on passing the barriers. A mob of the lowest order insisted on their carriage[Pg 236] being stopped, and on their being conducted back to Paris, exclaiming that all the rich were flying away, taking their treasures with them, and leaving the poor behind in want and misery. The few soldiers on the spot would have been soon overpowered; and nothing saved the travellers except Alfieri's courage. He at length succeeded in forcing a passage; but there is little doubt that if they had been obliged to return, they would have been thrown into prison, in which case they would have been among the unhappy victims who were so barbarously murdered by the populace on the 2d September.

They reached Calais in two days and a half, having had to show their passports more than forty times. They afterwards learned that they were the first foreigners who had escaped from Paris and from France after the catastrophe of the 10th August. After stopping some time at Brussels, they proceeded to Italy, and reached Florence in November. That city remained Alfieri's dwelling-place, nearly uninterruptedly, from this moment to the period of his death.

In 1795, when he was forty-six years old, a feeling of shame came over him at his ignorance of Greek, and he determined to master that language. He applied himself with such industry to the task, that before very long he could read almost any Greek author. There are few instances on record of such an effort being made at so advanced a period of life. Yet, perhaps, a still more remarkable case than that of our poet is that of Mehemet Ali, who did not learn to read or write till more than forty years of age. His son, Ibrahim, never did even that. At the same time that he was learning Greek, Alfieri amused himself by writing satires, of which he had completed seventeen by the end of 1797. The fruit of his Greek studies appeared in his tragedies of Alceste Prima and Alceste Seconda, which he composed after reading Euripides' fine play of that name. He calls these essays his final perjuries to Apollo. We have certainly seen him break his vow sufficiently often. The twelve tragedies he pledged himself not to exceed had now grown to their present number of twenty-one, besides the tramelogedy of Abel.

He remained quietly and happily at Florence till the French invasion in March, 1799, when he and the Countess retired to a villa in the country. He marked his hatred of the French nation by writing his Misogallo, a miscellaneous collection in prose and verse of the most violent and indiscriminate abuse of France, and every thing connected with it, as its name imports. On the evacuation of Florence by the French in July, they returned to the city, but again left it on the second invasion in October, 1800. The French commander-in-chief wrote to Alfieri, requesting the honor of the acquaintance of a man who had rendered such distinguished services to literature: but he told him in reply, that if he wrote in his quality as Commandant of Florence, he would yield to his superior authority; but that if it was merely as an individual curious to see him, he must beg to be excused.

We now find him irresistibly impelled to try his hand at comedy, and he accordingly wrote the six which are published with his other works. They are entitled respectively, L'Uno, I Pochi, Il Troppo, Tre Velene rimesta avrai l'Antido, La Finestrina, and Il Divorzio. The first four are political in their character, and written in iambics, like his tragedies. The last is the only one that can be ranked with modern comedies. Sismondi truly remarks, that in these dramas he exhibits the powers of a great satirist, not of a successful dramatist.

His health was by this time seriously impaired, and he felt it necessary to cease entirely from his labors. On the 8th December, 1802, he put the finishing stroke to his works, and amused himself for the short remainder of his life in writing the conclusion of his Memoirs. Feeling extremely proud at having overcome the difficulties of the Greek language in his later years, he invented a collar, on which were engraved the names of twenty-three ancient and modern poets, and to which was attached a cameo representing Homer. On the back of it he wrote the following distich:

With the account of this amusing little incident, Alfieri terminates the history of his life. The date it bears is the 14th of May, 1803, and on the 8th October of the same year he breathed his last, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. The particulars of his death are given in a letter addressed by the Abate di Caluso to the Countess of Albany. An attack of gout in the stomach was the immediate cause of it. The delicate state of his health greatly accelerated the progress of the disease, which was still further promoted by his insisting on proceeding with the correction of his works almost to the very last. He was so little aware of his impending dissolution, that he took a drive in a carriage on the 3d October, and tried to the last moment to starve his gout into submission. He refused to allow leeches to be applied to his legs, as the physicians recommended, because they would have prevented him from walking. At this period, all his studies and labors of the last thirty years rushed through his mind; and he told the Countess, who was attending him, that a considerable number of Greek verses from the beginning of Hesiod, which he had only read once in his life, recurred most distinctly to his memory. His mortal agony came on so suddenly, that there was not time to administer to him the last consolations of religion. He was buried in the church of Santa Croce at Florence, where already reposed the remains of Machiavelli, of Michael Angelo, and of Galileo. A monument to his memory, the work[Pg 237] of the great Canova, was raised over his ashes by direction of the Countess of Albany.

Such then was Alfieri! And may we not draw a moral from the story of his life as faintly and imperfectly shadowed forth in the preceding sketch? Does it not show us how we may overcome obstacles deemed by us insuperable, and how we may seek to become something better than what we are? The poet's name will go down to future ages as the idol of his countrymen; may the beneficial effect produced by a mind like his upon the character and aspirations of the world be enduring!

From the Dublin University Magazine

ANECDOTES OF PAGANINI.

Paganini was in all respects a very singular being, and an interesting subject to study. His talents were by no means confined to his wonderful powers as a musician. On other subjects he was well informed, acute, and conversible, of bland and gentle manners, and in society, perfectly well bred. All this contrasted strangely with the dark, mysterious stories which were bruited abroad, touching some passages in his early life. But outward semblance and external deportment are treacherous as quicksands, when taken as guides by which to sound the real depths of human character. Lord Byron remarks, that his pocket was once picked by the civilest gentleman he ever conversed with, and that by far the mildest individual of his acquaintance was the remorseless Ali Pacha of Yanina. The expressive lineaments of Paganini told a powerful tale of passions which had been fearfully excited, which might be roused again from temporary slumber, or were exhausted by indulgence and premature decay, leaving deep furrows to mark their intensity. Like the generality of his countrymen, he looked much older than he was. With them, the elastic vigor of youth and manhood rapidly subside into an interminable and joyless old age, numbering as many years but with far less both of physical and mental faculty, to render them endurable, than the more equally poised gradations of our northern clime. It is by no means unusual to encounter a well-developed Italian, whiskered to the eyebrows, and "bearded like the pard," who tells you, to your utter astonishment, that he is scarcely seventeen, when you have set him down from his appearance as, at least, five-and-thirty.

The following extract from Colonel Montgomery Maxwell's book of Military Reminiscences, entitled, "My Adventures," dated Genoa, February 22nd, 1815, supplies the earliest record which has been given to the public respecting Paganini, and affords authentic evidence that some of the mysterious tales which heralded his coming were not without foundation. He could scarcely have been at this time thirty years old. "Talking of music, I have become acquainted with the most outré, most extravagant, and strangest character I ever beheld, or heard, in the musical line. He has just been emancipated from durance vile, where he has been for a long time incarcerated on suspicion of murder. His long figure, long neck, long face, and long forehead; his hollow and deadly pale cheek, large black eye, hooked nose, and jet black hair, which is long, and more than half hiding his expressive, Jewish face; all these rendered him the most extraordinary person I ever beheld. There is something scriptural in the tout ensemble of the strange physiognomy of this uncouth and unearthly figure. Not that, as in times of old, he plays, as Holy Writ tells us, on a ten-stringed instrument; on the contrary, he brings the most powerful, the most wonderful, and the most heart-rending tones from one string. His name is Paganini; he is very improvident and very poor. The D——s, and the Impressario of the theatre got up a concert for him the other night, which was well attended, and on which occasion he electrified the audience. He is a native of Genoa, and if I were a judge of violin playing, I would pronounce him the most surprising performer in the world!"

That Paganini was either innocent of the charge for which he suffered the incarceration Colonel Maxwell mentions, or that it could not be proved against him, may be reasonably inferred from the fact that he escaped the gallies of the executioner. In Italy, there was then, par excellence (whatever there may be now), a law for the rich, and another for the poor. As he was without money, and unable to buy immunity, it is charitable to suppose he was entitled to it from innocence. A nobleman, with a few zecchini, was in little danger of the law, which confined its practice entirely to the lower orders. I knew a Sicilian prince, who most wantonly blew a vassal's brains out, merely because he put him in a passion. The case was not even inquired into. He sent half a dollar to the widow of the defunct (which, by the way, he borrowed from me, and never repaid), and there the matter ended. Lord Nelson once suggested to Ferdinand IV. of Naples, to try and check the daily increase of assassination, by a few salutary executions. "No, no," replied old Nasone, who was far from being as great a fool as he looked, "that is impossible. If I once began that system, my kingdom would soon be depopulated. One half my subjects would be continually employed in hanging the remainder."

Among other peculiarities, Paganini was an incarnation of avarice and parsimony, with a most contradictory passion for gambling. He would haggle with you for sixpence, and stake a rouleau on a single turn at rouge et noir. He screwed you down in a bargain as tightly as if you were compressed in a vice; yet he had intervals of liberality, and sometimes did a generous action. In this he bore some resemblance to the celebrated John Elwes, of miserly notoriety, who deprived himself of the common necessaries of life, and lived on a potato skin, but sometimes gave a check for[Pg 238] £100 to a public charity, and contributed largely to private subscriptions. I never heard that Paganini actually did this, but once or twice he played for nothing, and sent a donation to the Mendicity, when he was in Dublin.

When he made his engagement with me, we mutually agreed to write no orders, expecting the house to be quite full every night, and both being aware that the "sons of freedom," while they add nothing to the exchequer, seldom assist the effect of the performance. They are not given to applaud vehemently; or, as Richelieu observes, "in the right places." What we can get for nothing we are inclined to think much less of than that which we must purchase. He who invests a shilling will not do it rashly, or without feeling convinced that value received will accrue from the risk. The man who pays is the real enthusiast; he comes with a pre-determination to be amused, and his spirit is exalted accordingly. Paganini's valet surprised me one morning, by walking into my room, and with many "eccellenzas" and gesticulations of respect, asking me to give him an order. I said, "Why do you come to me? Apply to your master—won't he give you one?" "Oh, yes; but I don't like to ask him." "Why not?" "Because he'll stop the amount out of my wages!" My heart relented; I gave him the order, and paid Paganini the dividend. I told him what it was, thinking, as a matter of course, he would return it. He seemed uncertain for a moment, paused, smiled sardonically, looked at the three and sixpence, and with a spasmodic twitch, deposited it in his own waistcoat pocket instead of mine. Voltaire says, "no man is a hero to his valet de chambre," meaning, thereby, as I suppose, that being behind the scenes of every-day life, he finds out that Marshal Saxe, or Frederick the Great, is as subject to the common infirmities of our nature, as John Nokes or Peter Styles. Whether Paganini's squire of the body looked on his master as a hero in the vulgar acceptation of the word, I cannot say, but in spite of his stinginess, which he writhed under, he regarded him with mingled reverence and terror. "A strange person, your master," observed I. "Signor," replied the faithful Sancho Panza, "e veramente grand uomo, ma da non potersi comprendere." "He is truly a great man, but quite incomprehensible." It was edifying to observe the awful importance with which Antonio bore the instrument nightly intrusted to his charge to carry to and from the theatre. He considered it an animated something, whether demon or angel he was unable to determine, but this he firmly believed, that it could speak in actual dialogue when his master pleased, or become a dumb familiar by the same controlling volition. This especial violin was Paganini's inseparable companion. It lay on his table before him as he sat meditating in his solitary chamber; it was placed by his side at dinner, and on a chair within his reach when in bed. If he woke, as he constantly did, in the dead of night, and the sudden estro of inspiration seized him, he grasped his instrument, started up, and on the instant perpetuated the conception which otherwise he would have lost for ever. This marvellous Cremona, valued at four hundred guineas, Paganini, on his death-bed, gave to De Kontski, his nephew and only pupil, himself an eminent performer, and in his possession it now remains.

When Paganini was in Dublin, at the musical festival of 1830, the Marquis of Anglesea, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, came every night to the concerts at the theatre, and was greatly pleased with his performance. On the first evening, between the acts, his Excellency desired that he might be brought round to his box, to be introduced, and paid him many compliments. Lord Anglesea was at that time residing in perfect privacy with his family at Sir Harcourt Lee's country house, near Blackrock, and expressed a wish to get an evening from the great violinist, to gratify his domestic circle. The negotiation was rather a difficult one, as Paganini was, of all others, the man who did nothing in the way of business without an explicit understanding, and a clearly-defined con-si-de-ra-tion. He was alive to the advantages of honor, but he loved money with a paramount affection. I knew that he had received enormous terms, such as £150 and £200 for fiddling at private parties in London, and I trembled for the vice-regal purse; but I undertook to manage the affair, and went to work accordingly. The aid-de-camp in waiting called with me on Paganini, was introduced in due form, and handed him a card of invitation to dinner, which, of course, he received and accepted with ceremonious politeness. Soon after the officer had departed, he said suddenly, "This is a great honor, but am I expected to bring my instrument?" "Oh, yes," I replied, "as a matter of course—the Lord Lieutenant's family wish to hear you in private." "Caro amico," rejoined he, with petrifying composure, "Paganini con violino e Paganini senza violino,—ecco due animali distinti." "Paganini with his fiddle and Paganini without it are two very different persons." I knew perfectly what he meant, and said, "The Lord Lieutenant is a nobleman of exalted rank and character, liberal in the extreme, but he is not Crœsus; nor do I think you could with any consistency receive such an honor as dining at his table, and afterwards send in a bill for playing two or three tunes in the evening." He was staggered, and asked, "What do you advise?" I said, "Don't you think a present, in the shape of a ring, or a snuff-box, or something of that sort, with a short inscription, would be a more agreeable mode of settlement?" He seemed tickled by this suggestion, and closed with it at once. I dispatched the intelligence through the proper channel, that the violin and the grand maestro would both be in attendance. He went in his very choicest mood, made himself extremely agreeable,[Pg 239] played away, unsolicited, throughout the evening, to the delight of the whole party, and on the following morning a gold snuff-box was duly presented to him, with a few complimentary words engraved on the lid.

A year or two after this, when Paganini was again in England, I thought another engagement might be productive, as his extraordinary attraction appeared still to increase. I wrote to him on the subject, and soon received a very courteous communication, to the effect, that although he had not contemplated including Ireland in his tour, yet he had been so impressed by the urbanity of the Dublin public, and had moreover conceived such a personal esteem for my individual character, that he might be induced to alter his plans, at some inconvenience, provided always I could make him a more enticing proposal than the former one. I was here completely puzzled, as on that occasion I gave him a clear two-thirds of each receipt, with a bonus of twenty-five pounds per night in addition, for two useless coadjutors. I replied, that having duly deliberated on his suggestion, and considered the terms of our last compact, I saw no possible means of placing the new one in a more alluring shape, except by offering him the entire produce of the engagement. After I had dispatched my letter, I repented bitterly, and was terrified lest he should think me serious, and hold me to the bargain; but he deigned no answer, and this time I escaped for the fright I had given myself. When in London, I called to see him, and met with a cordial reception; but he soon alluded to the late correspondence, and half seriously said, "That was a curious letter you wrote to me, and the joke with which you concluded it by no means a good one." "Oh," said I, laughing, "it would have been much worse if you had taken me at my word." He then laughed too, and we parted excellent friends. I never saw him again. He returned to the Continent, and died, having purchased the title of Baron, with a patent of nobility, from some foreign potentate, which, with his accumulated earnings, somewhat dilapidated by gambling, he bequeathed to his only son. Paganini was the founder of his school, and the original inventor of those extraordinary tours de force with which all his successors and imitators are accustomed to astonish the uninitiated. But he still stands at the head of the list, although eminent names are included in it, and is not likely to be pushed from his pedestal.

Julius Cornet of Hamburgh understands thirty-eight different languages, not in the superficial manner of Elihu Burritt, but so well that he is able to write them with correctness, and to make translations from one into the other. He has issued a circular to the German public, offering his services as a universal translator, and refers to some of the most prominent publishers of Leipsic, whom he has many years served in that capacity.

BIOGRAPHY OF FRENCH JOURNALISTS.

Fraser's magazine contains a reviewal of Texier's new book on the Paris journals and editors, from which we copy the following paragraphs:

THE DÉBATS.

The Débats is chiefly read by wealthy landed proprietors, public functionaries, the higher classes of the magistracy, the higher classes of merchants and manufacturers, by the agents de change, barristers, notaries, and what we in England would call country gentlemen. Its circulation we should think 10,000. If it circulate 12,000 now, it certainly must have considerably risen since 1849.

The chief editor of the Débats is Armand Bertin. He was brought up in the school of his father, and is now about fifty years of age, or probably a little more. M. Bertin is a man of esprit, and of literary tastes, with the habits, feelings, and demeanor of a well-bred gentleman. Of an agreeable and facile commerce, the editor of the Débats is a man of elegant and Epicurean habits; but does not allow his luxurious tastes to interfere with the business of this nether world. According to M. Texier, he reads with his own proprietary and editorial eyes all the voluminous correspondence of the office on his return from the salon in which he has been spending the evening. If in the forenoon there is any thing of importance to learn in any quarter of Paris, M. Bertin is on the scent, and seldom fails to run down his game. At a certain hour in the day he appears in the Rue des Prêtres, in which the office of the Débats is situate, and there assigns to his collaborators their daily task. The compiler of the volume before us, who, as we stated, is himself connected with the Parisian press, writing in the Siècle, and who, it may therefore be supposed, has had good opportunities for information, states that, previous to the passing of the Tinguy law, M. Bertin never wrote in his own journal, but contented himself with giving to the products of so many pens the necessary homogeneity. But be this as it may, it is certain he has often written since the law requires the signature obligatoire.

Under the Monarchy of the Barricades the influence of M. Bertin was most considerable, yet he only used this influence to obtain orders and decorations for his contributors. As to himself, to his honor and glory be it stated, that he never stuck the smallest bit of riband to his own buttonhole, or, during the seventeen years of the monarchy of July, ever once put his feet inside the Tuileries. At the Italian Opera or the Variétés, sometimes at the Café de Paris, the Maison Dorée, or the Trois Frères, M. Bertin may be seen enjoying the music, or his dinner and wine, but never was he a servile courtier or trencher-follower of the Monarch of the Barricades. It is after these enjoyments, or after his petit souper, that M. Bertin proceeds for the last time for the day, or rather the night, to the office of the[Pg 240] paper. There shutting himself up in his cabinet, he calls for proofs, reads them, and when he has seen every thing, and corrected every thing, he then gives the final and authoritative order to go to press, and towards two o'clock in the morning turns his steps homeward. M. Bertin, says our author with some malice, belongs to that class of corpulent men so liked by Cæsar and Louis Phillippe. Personally, M. Bertin has no reverence for what is called nobility, either ancient or modern. He is of the school of Chaussée d'Antin, which would set the rich and intelligent middle classes in the places formerly occupied by Messieurs les Grands Seigneurs.

The ablest man, connected with the Débats, or indeed, at this moment, with the press of France, is M. de Sacy. De Sacy is an advocate by profession, and pleaded in his youth some causes with considerable success. At a very early period of his professional existence he allied himself with the Débats. His articles are distinguished by ease and flow, yet by a certain gravity and weight, which is divested, however, of the disgusting doctoral tone. He is, in truth, a solid and serious writer, without being in the least degree heavy. Political men of the old school read his papers with pleasure, and most foreigners may read them with profit and instruction. M. de Sacy is a simple, modest, and retiring gentleman, of great learning, and a taste and tact very uncommon for a man of so much learning. Though he has been for more than a quarter of a century influentially connected with the Débats, and has, during eighteen or twenty years of the period, had access to men in the very highest positions—to ministers, ambassadors, to the sons of a king, and even to the late king himself, it is much to his credit that he has contented himself with a paltry riband and a modest place, as Conservateur de la Bibliothèque Mazarine. M. de Sacy belongs to a Jansenist family. Apropos of this, M. Texier tells a pleasant story concerning him. A Roman Catholic writer addressing him one day in the small gallery reserved for the journalist at the Chamber of Deputies, said, "You are a man, M. de Sacy, of too much cleverness, and of too much honesty, not to be one of us, sooner or later." "Not a bit of it," replied promptly M. de Sacy; "je veux vivre et mourir avec un pied dans le doute et l'autre dans la foi."

Saint-marc Girardin is certainly, next to De Sacy, the most distinguished writer connected with the Débats. He was originally a maître d'étude at the College of Henry IV., and sent one fine morning an article to the Débats, which produced a wonderful sensation. The article was without name or address; but old Bertin so relished and appreciated it, that he was not to be foiled in finding out the author. An advertisement was inserted on the following day, requesting the writer to call at the editor's study, when M. Saint-Marc Girardin was attached as a regular soldat de plume to the establishment—a profitable engagement, which left him at liberty to leave his miserable métier of maître d'étude. The articles written in 1834 against the Emperor of Russia and the Russian system were from the pen of M. Girardin.—The maître d'étude of former days became professor at the College of France—became deputy, and exhibited himself, able writer and dialectician as he was and is, as a mediocre speaker, and ultimately became academician and un des quarante.

Another distinguished writer in the Débats is Michel Chevalier. Chevalier is an élève of the Polytechnic School, who originally wrote in the Globe. When editor and gérant of the Globe, he was condemned to six months' imprisonment for having developed in that journal the principles of St. Simonianism. Before the expiration of his sentence he was appointed by the Government to a sort of travelling commission to America; and from that country he addressed a series of memorable letters to the Débats, which produced at the time immense effect. Since that period, Chevalier was appointed Professor of Political Economy at the College of France, a berth from whence he was removed by Carnot, Minister of Public Instruction, but afterwards reinstated by subsequent ministers. Chevalier, though an able man, is yet more of an economic writer than a political disquisitionist. His brother Augustus is Secretary-general of the Elysée.

Among the other contributors are Philarete Chasles, an excellent classical scholar, and a man well acquainted with English literature; Cuvillier Fleury, unquestionably a man of taste and talent; and the celebrated Jules Janin. The productions of the latter as a feuilletoniste are so well known that we do not stop to dwell upon them. Janin is not without merit, and he is highly popular with a certain class of writers: but his articles after all, apart from the circumstances of the day, are but a rechauffé of the style of Marivaux.

THE CONSTITUTIONNEL.

The history of the Constitutionnel follows that of the Débats. The Débats, says M. Texier, is ingenious, has tact without enthusiasm, banters with taste, and scuds before the wind with a grace which only belongs to a fin voilier—to a fast sailing clipper. But, on the other hand, none of these qualities are found in the Constitutionnel, which, though often hot, and not seldom vehement and vulgar, is almost uniformly heavy. For three-and-thirty years—that is to say, from 1815 to 1848—the Constitutionnel traded in Voltairien principles, in vehement denunciations of the Parti Prêtre and of the Jesuits, and in the intrigues of the emigrants and royalist party quand même. For many years the literary giant of this Titanic warfare was Etienne, who had been in early life secretary to Maret, duke of Bassano, himself a mediocre journalist, though an excellent reporter and stenographer. Etienne was a man of esprit and talent, who had commenced his career as a writer in the Minerve Française. In this miscellany, his letters on Paris acquired[Pg 241] as much vogue as his comedies. About 1818, Etienne acquired a single share in the Constitutionnel, and after a year's service became impregnated with the air of the Rue Montmartre—with the spirit of the genius loci. When one has been some time writing for a daily newspaper, this result is sure to follow. One gets habituated to set phrases—to pet ideas—to the traditions of the locality—to the prejudices of the readers, political or religious, as the case may be. Independently of this, the daily toil of newspaper writing is such, and so exhausting, that a man obliged to undergo it for any length of time is glad occasionally to find refuge in words without ideas, which have occasionally much significancy with the million, or in topics on which the public love to dwell fondly. Under the reign of Louis XVIII. and Charles X. it lost no opportunity, by indirection and innuendo, of hinting at the "Petit Caporal," and this circumstance during the life of the emperor, and long after his death, caused the journal to be adored—that is really the word—by the old army, by the vieux de vieille, and by the durs à cuirs. In these good old bygone times the writers in the Constitutionel wore a blue frock closely buttoned up to the chin, to the end that they might pass for officers of the old army on half-pay. In 1830 the fortunes of the Constitutionnel had reached the culminant point. It then counted 23,000 subscribers, at 80 francs a year. At that period a single share in the property was a fortune. But the avatar of the Citizen King spoiled in a couple of years the sale of the citizen journal. The truth is, that the heat of the Revolution of July had engendered and incubated a multitude of journals, great and little, bounding with young blood and health—journals whose editors and writers did not desire better sport than to attack the Constitutionnel at right and at left, and to tumble the dear, fat, rubicund, old gentleman, head over heels. Among these was the Charivari, which incontinently laughed at the whole system of the establishment, from the crapulous, corpulent, and Voltairien Etienne, down to the lowest printer's devil. The metaphors, the puffs, canards, the réclames, &c. of the Constitutionnel were treated mercilessly and as nothing—not even Religion itself can stand the test of ridicule among so mocking a people as the French; the result was, that the Constitutionnel diminished wonderfully in point of circulation. Yet the old man wrote and spoke well, and had, from 1824 to 1829, as an ally the sharp and clever Thiers, and the better read, the better informed, and the more judicious Mignet. It was during the Vitelle administration that the Constitutionnel attained the very highest acme of its fame. It was then said to have had 30,000 subscribers, and to have maintained them with the cry of "Down with the Jesuits!" In 1827-28, during its palmiest days, the Constitutionnel had no Roman feuilleton. It depended then on its leading articles, nor was it till its circulation declined, in 1843, to about 3500, that the proprietors determined to reduce the price one-half. They then, too, adopted the Roman feuilleton, giving as much as 500 francs for an article of this kind to Dumas or Sue. From 1845 or 1846 to 1848, the Consitutionnel had most able contributors of leading articles; Thiers, De Remusat, and Duvergier d'Hauranne, having constantly written in its columns. The circulation of the journal was then said to amount to 24,000. When the Constitutionnel entered into the hands of its present proprietor, Docteur Louis Veron, it was said to be reduced to 3000 subscribers. How many subscribers it has now we have no very accurate means of knowing, but we should say, at a rough guess, it may have 9000 or 10,000. It should be remembered, that from being an anti-sacerdotal journal it has become a priests' paper and the organ of priests; from being an opponent of the executive, it has become the organ and the apologist of the executive in the person of M. L. N. Buonaparte, and the useful instrument, it is said, of M. Achille Fould. Every body knows, says M. Texier, with abundant malice prepense, that Dr. Veron, the chief editor of the Constitutionnel, has declared that France may henceforth place her head on the pillow and go quietly to sleep, for the doctor confidently answers for the good faith and wisdom of the president.

But who is Doctor Veron, the editor-in-chief, when one finds his excellency chezelle? The ingenuous son of Esculapius tells us himself that he has known the coulisses (the phrase is a queer one) of science, of the arts, of politics, and even of the opera. It appears, however, that the dear doctor is the son of a stationer of the Rue du Bac, who began his career by studying medicine. If we are to believe himself, his career was a most remarkable one. In 1821 he was received what is called an interne of the Hôtel Dieu. After having walked the hospitals, he enrolled himself in the Catholic and Apostolic Society of 'bonnes lettres,' collaborated with the writers in the Quotidienne, and, thanks to Royalist patronage, was named physician-in-chief of the Royal Museums. Whether any of the groups in the pictures of Rubens, Salvator Rosa, Teniers, Claude, or Poussin—whether any of the Torsos of Praxiteles, or even of a more modern school, required the assiduous care or attention of a skilful physician, we do not pretend to state. But we repeat that the practice of Dr. Veron, according to M. Texier, was confined to these dumb yet not inexpressive personages. In feeling the pulse of the Venus de Medici, or looking at the tongue of the Laocoon, or the Apollo Belvidere, it is said the chief, if not the only practice of Dr. Louis Veron consisted. True, the doctor invented a pâte pectorale, approved by all the emperors and kings in Europe, and very renowned, too, among the commonalty; but so did Dr. Solomon, of Gilead House, near Liverpool, invent a balm of Gilead, and Mrs. Cockle invent anti-bilious pills, taken by many of the judges, a[Pg 242] majority of the bench of bishops, and some admirals of the blue, and general officers without number, yet we have never heard that Moses Solomon or Tabitha Cockle were renowned in the practice of physic, notwithstanding the said Gilead and the before-mentioned pills. Be this, however, as it may, Veron, after having doctored the pictures and statues, and patepectoraled the Emperor, the Pope, the Grand Turk, the Imaum of Muscat, the Shah of Persia, and the Great Mogul himself, next established the Review of Paris, which in its turn he abandoned to become the director of the Opera. Tired of the Opera after four or five years' service, the doctor became a candidate of the dynastic opposition at Brest. This was the "artful dodge" before the Revolution of July 1848, if we may thus translate an untranslateable phrase of the doctor's. At Brest the professor of the healing art failed, and the consequence was, that instead of being a deputy he became the proprietor of the Constitutionnel. Fortunate man that he is! In Robert le Diable at the Opera, which he would not at first have at any price, the son of Esculapius found the principal source of his fortune, and by the Juif Errant of Eugène Sue, for which he gave 100,000 francs, he saved the Constitutionnel from perdition. Apropos of this matter, there is a pleasant story abroad. When Veron purchased the Constitutionnel, Thiers was writing his Histoire du Consulat, for which the booksellers had agreed to give 500,000 francs. Veron wished to have the credit of publishing the book in the Constitutionnel, and with this view waited on Thiers, offering to pay down, argent comptant, one-half the money. Thiers, though pleased with the proposition, yet entrenched himself behind his engagement with the booksellers. To one of the leading booksellers Veron trotted off post-haste, and opened the business. "Oh!" said the sensible publisher, "you have mistaken your coup altogether." "How so?" said the doctor. "Don't you see," said the Libraire Editeur, "that the rage is Eugène Sue, and that the Débats and the Presse are at fistycuffs to obtain the next novelty of the author of the Mystères de Paris? Go you and offer as much again for this novel, whatever it may be, as either the one or other of them, and the fortune of the Constitutionnel is made." The doctor took the advice, and purchased the next novelty of Sue at 100,000 francs. This turned out to be the Juif Errant, which raised the circulation of the Constitutionnel to 24,000.

Veron is a puffy-faced little man, with an overgrown body, and midriff sustained upon an attenuated pair of legs; his visage is buried in an immense shirt collar, stiff and starched as a Norman cap. Dr. Veron believes himself the key-stone of the Elyséan arch, and that the weight of the government is on his shoulders. Look at him as he enters the Café de Paris to eat his purée à la Condé, and his suprême de volaille, and his filet de chevreuil piqué aux truffes, and you would say that he is not only the prime, but the favorite minister of Louis Napoleon, par la grace de Dieu et Monsieur le Docteur Président de la République. "Après tout c'est un mauvais drôle, que ce pharmacien," to use the term applied to the doctor by General Changarnier.

A short man of the name of Boilay washes the dirty linen of Dr. Veron, and corrects his faults of grammar, of history, &c. Boilay is a small, sharp, stout, little man, self-possessed, self-satisfied, with great readiness and tact. Give him but the heads of a subject and he can make out a very readable and plausible article. Boilay is the real working editor of the Constitutionnel, and is supported by a M. Clarigny, a M. Malitourne, and others not more known or more respected. Garnier de Cassagnac, of the Pouvoir, a man of very considerable talent, though not of very fixed principle, writes occasionally in the Constitutionnel, and more ably than any of the other contributors. M. St. Beuve is the literary critic, and he performs his task with eminent ability.

THE NATIONAL.

We now come to the National, founded by Carrel, Mignet, and Thiers. It was agreed between the triad that each should take the place of rédacteur en chef for a year. Thiers, as the oldest and most experienced, was the first installed, and conducted the paper with zest and spirit till the Revolution of 1830 broke out. The National set out with the idea of changing the incorrigible dynasty, and instituting Orléanism in the place of it. The refusal to pay taxes and to contribute to a budget was a proposition of the National, and it is not going too far to say, that the crisis of 1830 was hastened by this journal. It was at the office of the National that the famous protest, proclaiming the right of resistance, was composed and signed by Thiers, De Remusat, and Canchois Lemaire. On the following day the office of the journal was bombarded by the police and an armed force, when the presses were broken. Against this illegal violence the editors protested. After the Revolution, Carrel assumed the conduct of the journal, and became the firmest as well as the ablest organ of democracy. To the arbitrary and arrogant Perier, he opposed a firm and uncompromising resistance. Every one acquainted with French politics at that epoch is aware of the strenuous and stand-up fight he made for five years for his principles. He it was who opposed a bold front to military bullies, and who invented the epithet traîneurs de sabre. This is not the place to speak of the talent of Carrel. He was shot in a miserable quarrel in 1836, by Emile Girardin, then, as now, the editor of the Presse. On the death of Carrel, the shareholders of the paper assembled together to name a successor. M. Trelat, subsequently minister, was fixed upon. But as he was then a détenu at Clairvaux, Bastide and Littré filled the editorial chair during the interregnum. On the release of Trelat, it was soon discovered that he had not the peculiar talent necessary. The sceptre of[Pg 243] authority passed into the hands of M. Bastide, named Minister of Foreign Affairs in the ending of 1848, or the beginning of 1849. M. Bastide, then a marchand de bois, divided his editorial empire with M. Armand Marrast, who had been a political prisoner and a refugee in England, and who returned to France on the amnesty granted on the marriage of the Duke of Orleans. M. Marrast, though a disagreeable, self-sufficient, and underbred person, was unquestionably a writer of point, brilliancy, and vigor. From 1837 to the Revolution of 1848 he was connected with the National, and was the author of a series of articles which have not been equalled since. Like all low, vulgar-bred, and reptile-minded persons, Marrast forgot himself completely when raised to the position of President of the Chamber of Deputies. In this position he made irreconcileable enemies of all his old colleagues, and of most persons who came into contact with him. The fact is, that your schoolmaster and pedagogue can rarely become a gentleman, or any thing like a gentleman. The writers in the National at the present moment are, M. Léopold Duras, M. Alexandre Rey, Caylus, Cochut, Forques, Littré, Paul de Musset, Colonel Charras, and several others whose names it is not necessary to mention here.

THE SIÈCLE.

We come now to the Siècle, a journal which, though only established in 1836, has, we believe, a greater sale than any journal in Paris—at least, had a greater sale previous to the Revolution of February 1848. The Siècle was the first journal that started at the low price of 40 francs a-year, when almost every other newspaper was purchased at a cost of 70 or 80 francs. It should also be recollected, that it was published under the auspices of the deputies of the constitutional opposition. The Siècle was said, in 1846, to have had 42,000 subscribers. Its then editor was M. Chambolle, who abandoned the concern in February or March 1849, not being able to agree with M. Louis Perrée, the directeur of the journal. Since Chambolle left a journal which he had conducted for thirteen years, M. Perrée has died in the flower of his age, mourned by those connected with the paper, and regretted by the public at large. Previous to the Revolution of 1848, Odillon Barrot and Gustave de Beaumont took great interest and an active part in the management of the Siècle. That positive, dogmatical, self-opinioned, and indifferent newspaper writer, Léon Faucher, was then one of the principal contributors to this journal. The Siècle of 1851 is somewhat what the Constitutionnel was in 1825, 6, and 7. It is eminently City-like and of the bourgeoisie, "earth, earthy," as a good, reforming, economic National Guard ought to be. The success of the journal is due to this spirit, and to the eminently fair, practical, and business-like manner in which it has been conducted. Perrée, the late editor and manager of the journal, who died at the early age of 34, was member for the Manche. The writers in the journal are Louis Jourdan, formerly a St. Simonian; Pierre Bernard, who was secretary to Armand Carrel; Hippolite Lamarche, an ex-cavalry captain; Auguste Jullien (son of Jullien de Paris, one of the commissaries of Robespierre); and others whom it is needless to mention.

THE PRESSE.

The Presse was founded in 1836, about the same time as the Siècle, by Emile de Girardin, a son of General de Girardin, it is said, by an English mother. Till that epoch of fifteen years ago, people in Paris or in France had no idea of a journal exceeding in circulation 25,000 copies, the circulation of the Constitutionnel, or of a newspaper costing less than seventy or eighty francs per annum. Many journals had contrived to live on respectably enough on a modest number of 4000 or 5000 abonnés. But the conductors of the Presse and of the Siècle were born to operate a revolution in this routine and jog-trot of newspaper life. They reduced the subscription to newspapers from eighty to forty francs per annum, producing as good if not a better article. This was a great advantage to the million, and it induced parties to subscribe for, and read a newspaper, more especially in the country, who never thought of reading a newspaper before. In constituting his new press, M. Girardin entirely upset and rooted out all the old notions theretofore prevailing as to the conduct of a journal. The great feature in the new journal was not its leading articles, but its Roman feuilleton, by Dumas, Sue, &c. This it was that first brought Socialism into extreme vogue among the working classes. True the Presse was not the first to publish Socialist feuilletons, but the Débats and the Constitutionnel. But the Presse was the first to make the leading article subsidiary to the feuilleton. It was, even when not a professed Socialist, a great promoter of Socialism, by the thorough support which it lent to all the slimy, jesuitical corruptions of Guizoism, and all the turpitudes and chicanery of Louis Philippism. When the Presse was not a year old it had 15,000 subscribers, and before it was twelve years old the product of its advertisements amounted to 150,000 francs a-year. Indeed this journal has the rare merit of being the first to teach the French the use, and we must add the abuse, of advertisements. We fear the Presse, during these early days of the gentle Emile and Granier Cassagnac, was neither a model of virtue, disinterestedness, nor self-denial. Nor do we know that it is so now, even under the best of Republics. There are strange tales abroad, even allowing for the exaggeration of Rumor with her hundred tongues. One thing, however, is clear; that the Presse was a liberal paymaster to its feuilletonistes. To Dumas, Sand, De Balzac, Théophile Gautier, and Jules Sandeau, it four years ago paid 300 francs per day for contributions. The Presse, as M. Texier says, is now less the collective reason of a set of writers[Pg 244] laboring to a common intent, than the expression of the individual activity, energy, and wonderful mobility of M. Girardin himself. The Presse is Emile de Girardin, with his boldness, his audacity, his rampant agility, his Jim Crowism, his inexhaustible cleverness, wonderful fecundity, and indisputable talent. The Presse is bold and daring; but no man can tell the color of its politics to-day, much less three days, or three months hence. On the 25th of July, 1848, it was as audacious, as unabashed, and as little disconcerted as two days before. When the workmen arrived in crowds to break its presses, the ingenious Emile threw open the doors of the press-room, talked and reasoned with the greasy rogues, and sent them contented away.

The number of journals in Paris is greater—much greater, relatively—than the number existing in London. The people of Paris love and study a newspaper more than the people of London, and take a greater interest in public affairs, and more especially in questions of foreign policy. Previous to the Revolution of February 1848, it cannot, we think, be denied that newspaper writers in France held a much higher rank than contributors to the daily press in England, and even still they continue to hold a higher and more influential position, though there can be no good reason why they should have done so at either time. For the last fifteen years there cannot be any doubt or question that the leading articles in the four principal daily London morning papers exhibit an amount of talent, energy, information, readiness, and compression, which are not found in such perfect and wonderful combination in the French press.

For the last three years, however, the press of France has wonderfully deteriorated. It is no longer what it was antecedent to the Revolution. There is not the literary skill, the artistical ability, the energy, the learning, and the eloquence which theretofore existed. The class of writers in newspapers now are an inferior class in attainments, in scholarship, and in general ability. There can be little doubt, we conceive, that the press greatly increased and abused its power, for some years previous to 1848. This led to the decline of its influence—an influence still daily diminishing; but withal, even still the press in France has more influence, and enjoys more social and literary consideration, than the press in England. We believe that newspaper writers in France are not now so generally well paid as they were twenty or thirty years ago. Two or three eminent writers can always command in Paris what would be called a sporting price, but the great mass of leading-article writers receive considerably less in money than a similar class in London, though they exercise a much greater influence on public opinion, and enjoy from the peculiar constitution of French society a higher place in the social scale.

—We see by the last papers from Paris that Veron and the President have quarreled.

From the Cincinnati Commercial Advertiser.

PROPHECY.

BY ALICE CAREY.

From Household Words

THE MODERN HAROUN-AL-RASCHID.

In the district of Ferdj' Onah (which signifies Fine Country), Algeria, lives a Scheik named Bou-Akas-ben-Achour. He is also distinguished by the surname of Bou-Djenoni (the Man of the Knife), and may be regarded as a type of the eastern Arab. His ancestors conquered Ferdj' Onah, but he has been forced to acknowledge the supremacy of France, by paying a yearly tribute of 80,000 francs. His dominion extends from Milah to Rabouah, and from the southern point of Babour to within two leagues of Gigelli. He is forty-nine years old, and wears the Rahyle costume; that is to say, a woollen gandoura, confined by a leathern belt. He carries a pair of pistols in his girdle, by his side the Rahyle flissa, and suspended from his neck a small black knife.

Before him walks a negro carrying his gun, and a huge greyhound bounds along by his side. He holds despotic sway over twelve tribes; and should any neighboring people venture to make an incursion on his territory, Bou-Akas seldom condescends to march against them in person, but sends his negro into the principal village. This envoy just displays the gun of Bou-Akas, and the injury is instantly repaired.

He keeps in pay two or three hundred Tolbas to read the Koran to the people; every pilgrim going to Mecca, and passing through Ferdj' Onah, receives three francs, and may remain as long as he pleases to enjoy the hospitality of Bou-Akas. But whenever the Scheik discovers that he has been deceived by a pretended pilgrim, he immediately dispatches emissaries after the impostor; who, wherever he is, find him, throw him down, and give him fifty blows on the soles of his feet.

Bou-Akas sometimes entertains three hundred persons at dinner; but instead of sharing their repast, he walks round the tables with a[Pg 245] baton in his hand, seeing that the servants attend properly to his guests. Afterwards, if any thing is left, he eats; but not until the others have finished.

When the governor of Constantinople, the only man whose power he recognizes, sends him a traveller; according to the rank of the latter, or the nature of the recommendation Bou-Akas gives him his gun, his dog, or his knife. If the gun, the traveller takes it on his shoulder; if the dog, he leads it in a leash; or if the knife, he hangs it round his neck: and with any one of these potent talismans, of which each bears its own degree of honor, the stranger passes through the region of the twelve tribes, not only unscathed, but as the guest of Bou-Akas, treated with the utmost hospitality. When the traveller is about to leave Ferdj' Onah, he consigns the knife, the dog, or the gun to the care of the first Arab he meets. If the Arab is hunting, he leaves the chase; if laboring in the field, he leaves his plough; and, taking the precious deposit, hastens to restore it to the Bou-Akas.

The black-handled knife is so well known, that it has given the surname of "Bou-Djenoni, the man of the knife," to its owner. With this implement he is accustomed to cut off heads, whenever he takes a fancy to perform that agreeable office with his own hand.

When first Bou-Akas assumed the government, the country was infested with robbers, but he speedily found means to extirpate them. He disguised himself as a poor merchant; walked out, and dropped a douro (a gold coin) on the ground, taking care not to lose sight of it. If the person who happened to pick up the douro, put it into his pocket and passed on, Bou-Akas made a sign to his chinaux (who followed him, also in disguise, and knew the Scheik's will) rushed forward immediately, and decapitated the offender. In consequence of this summary method of administering justice, it is a saying amongst the Arabs that a child might traverse the regions which own Bou-Akas's sway, wearing a golden crown on his head, without a single hand being stretched out to take it.

The Scheik has great respect for women, and has ordered that when the females of Ferdj' Onah go out to draw water, every man who meets them shall turn away his head. Wishing one day to ascertain whether his commands were attended to, he went out in disguise: and, meeting a beautiful Arab maiden on her way to the well, approached and saluted her. The girl looked at him with amazement, and said: "Pass on, stranger; thou knowest not the risk them hast run." And when Bou-Akas persisted in speaking to her, she added: "Foolish man, and reckless of thy life; knowest thou not that we are in the country of Bou-Djenoni, who causes all women to be held in respect?"

Bou-Akas is very strict in his religious observances; he never omits his prayers and ablutions, and has four wives, the number permitted by the Koran. Having heard that the Cadi of one of his twelve tribes administered justice in an admirable manner, and pronounced decisions in a style worthy of King Solomon himself, Bou-Akas, like a second Haroun-Al-Raschid, determined to judge for himself as to the truth of the report. Accordingly, dressed like a private individual, without arms or attendants, he set out for the Cadi's towns, mounted on a docile Arabian steed. He arrived there, and was just entering the gate, when a cripple seizing the border of his burnous, asked him for alms in the name of the prophet. Bou-Akas gave him money, but the cripple still maintained his hold. "What dost thou want?" asked the Scheik; "I have already given thee alms."

"Yes," replied the beggar, "but the law says, not only—'Thou shalt give alms to thy brother,' but also, 'Thou shalt do for thy brother whatsoever thou canst.'"

"Thou canst save me,—poor crawling creature that I am!—from being trodden under the feet of men, horses, mules and camels, which would certainly happen to me in passing through the crowded square, in which a fair is now going on."

"By letting me ride behind you, and putting me down safely in the market-place, where I have business."

"Be it so," replied Bou-Akas. And stooping down, he helped the cripple to get up behind him; a business which was not accomplished without much difficulty. The strangely assorted riders attracted many eyes as they passed through the crowded streets; and at length they reached the market-place. "Is this where you wish to stop?" asked Bou-Akas.

"I mean that he belongs to me. Know you not that we are now in the town of the just Cadi, and that if we bring the case before him, he will certainly decide in my favor?"

"Don't you think that when he sees us two,—you with your strong straight limbs, which Allah has given you for the purpose of walking, and I with my weak legs and distorted feet,—he will decree that the horse shall belong to him who has most need of him?"

"Oh! as to that," replied the cripple, laughing, "although he is just, he is not infallible."

"So!" thought the Scheik to himself, "this will be a capital opportunity of judging the judge." He said aloud, "I am content—we will go before the Cadi."[Pg 246]

Arrived at the tribunal, where the judge, according to the eastern custom, was publicly administering justice, they found that two trials were about to go on, and would of course take precedence of theirs. The first was between a taleb or learned man, and a peasant. The point in dispute was the taleb's wife, whom the peasant had carried off, and whom he asserted to be his own better half, in the face of the philosopher who demanded her restoration. The woman, strange circumstance! remained obstinately silent, and would not declare for either; a feature in the case which rendered its decision excessively difficult. The judge heard both sides attentively, reflected for a moment, and then said, "Leave the woman here, and return to-morrow." The savant and the laborer each bowed and retired; and the next cause was called. This was a difference between a butcher and an oil-seller. The latter appeared covered with oil, and the former was sprinkled with blood.

The butcher spoke first:—"I went to buy some oil from this man, and in order to pay him for it, I drew a handful of money from my purse. The sight of the money tempted him. He seized me by the wrist. I cried out, but he would not let me go; and here we are, having come before your worship, I holding my money in my hand, and he still grasping my wrist. Now, I swear by the Prophet, that this man is a liar, when he says that I stole his money, for the money is truly mine own."

Then spoke the oil-merchant:—"This man came to purchase oil from me. When his bottle was filled, he said, 'Have you change for a piece of gold?' I searched my pocket, and drew out my hand full of money, which I laid on a bench in my shop. He seized it, and was walking off with my money and my oil, when I caught him by the wrist, and cried out 'Robber!' In spite of my cries, however, he would not surrender the money, so I brought him here, that your worship might decide the case. Now, I swear by the Prophet that this man is a liar, when he says that I want to steal his money, for it is truly mine own."

The Cadi caused each plaintiff to repeat his story, but neither varied one jot from his original statement. He reflected for a moment, and then said, "Leave the money with me, and return to-morrow." The butcher placed the coins, which he had never let go, on the edge of the Cadi's mantle. After which he and his opponent bowed to the tribunal, and departed.

It was now the turn of Bou-Akas and the cripple. "My lord Cadi," said the former, "I came hither from a distant country, with the intention of purchasing merchandise. At the city gate I met this cripple, who first asked for alms, and then prayed me to allow him to ride behind me through the streets, lest he should be trodden down in the crowd. I consented, but when we reached the market-place, he refused to get down, asserting that my horse belonged to him, and that your worship would surely adjudge it to him, who wanted it most. That, my lord Cadi, is precisely the state of the case—I swear it by Mahomet!"

"My lord," said the cripple, "as I was coming on business to the market, and riding this horse, which belongs to me, I saw this man seated by the roadside, apparently half dead from fatigue. I good naturedly offered to take him on the crupper, and let him ride as far as the market-place, and he eagerly thanked me. But what was my astonishment, when, on our arrival, he refused to get down, and said that my horse was his. I immediately required him to appear before your worship, in order that you might decide between us. That is the true state of the case—I swear it by Mahomet!"

Having made each repeat his deposition, and having reflected for a moment, the Cadi said, "Leave the horse here, and return to-morrow."

It was done, and Bou-Akas and the cripple withdrew in different directions. On the morrow, a number of persons besides those immediately interested in the trials assembled to hear the judge's decisions. The taleb and the peasant were called first.

"Take away thy wife," said the Cadi to the former, "and keep her, I advise thee, in good order." Then turning towards his chinaux, he added, pointing to the peasant, "Give this man fifty blows." He was instantly obeyed, and the taleb carried off his wife.

Then came forward the oil-merchant and the butcher. "Here," said the Cadi to the butcher, "is thy money; it is truly thine, and not his." Then pointing to the oil-merchant, he said to his chinaux, "Give this man fifty blows." It was done, and the butcher went away in triumph with his money.

The third cause was called, and Bou-Akas and the cripple came forward. "Would'st thou recognize thy horse amongst twenty others?" said the judge to Bou-Akas.

They entered a large stable, and Bou-Akas pointed out his horse amongst twenty which were standing side by side.

"'Tis well," said the judge. "Return now to the tribunal, and send me thine adversary hither."

The disguised Scheik obeyed, delivered his message, and the cripple hastened to the stable, as quickly as his distorted limbs allowed. He possessed quick eyes and a good memory, so that he was able, without the slightest hesitation, to place his hand on the right animal.

His worship resumed his place, and when the cripple arrived, judgment was pronounced. "The horse is thine," said the Cadi to Bou-Akas. "Go to the stable, and take him." Then to the chinaux, "Give this cripple fifty blows." It was done; and Bou-Akas went to take his horse.

When the Cadi, after concluding the business[Pg 247] of the day, was retiring to his house, he found Bou-Akas waiting for him. "Art thou discontented with my award?" asked the judge.

"No, quite the contrary," replied the Scheik. "But I want to ask by what inspiration thou hast rendered justice; for I doubt not that the other two cases were decided as equitably as mine. I am not a merchant; I am Bou-Akas, Scheik of Ferdj' Onah, and I wanted to judge for myself of thy reputed wisdom."

"I am anxious," said Bou-Akas, "to know the reasons which determined your three decisions."

"Nothing, my lord, can be more simple. Your highness saw that I detained for a night the three things in dispute?"

"Well, early in the morning I caused the woman to be called, and I said to her suddenly—'Put fresh ink in my inkstand.' Like a person who had done the same thing a hundred times before, she took the bottle, removed the cotton, washed them both, put in the cotton again, and poured in fresh ink, doing it all with the utmost neatness and dexterity. So I said to myself, 'A peasant's wife would known nothing about inkstands—she must belong to the taleb."

"Did your highness remark that the merchant had his clothes and hands covered with oil?"

"Well; I took the money, and placed it in a vessel filled with water. This morning I looked at it, and not a particle of oil was to be seen on the surface of the water. So I said to myself, 'If this money belonged to the oil-merchant it would be greasy from the touch of his hands; as it is not so, the butcher's story must be true.'"

"Ah! that was a different business; and, until this morning, I was greatly puzzled."

"My object in bringing you separately to the stable, was not to see whether you would know the horse, but whether the horse would acknowledge you. Now, when you approached him, the creature turned towards you, laid back his ears, and neighed with delight; but when the cripple touched him, he kicked. Then I knew that you were truly his master."

Bou-Akas thought for a moment, and then said: "Allah has given thee great wisdom. Thou oughtest to be in my place, and I in thine. And yet, I know not; thou art certainly worthy to be Scheik, but I fear that I should but badly fill thy place as Cadi!"

From the Manchester Examiner.

LOVE.—A SONNET.

BY J. C. PRINCE.

From the Spectator.

THE HISTORY OF SORCERY AND MAGIC.[I]

The rationale of magic, when a combination of skill and fraud imposed upon the vulgar, is easily settled. The priests of the ancient mythology, the adepts of the middle ages, turned their knowledge of chemistry and mechanics and their proficiency in legerdemain to account; and before we denounce the latter as impostors, we should bear in mind the ignorance of the times in which they lived. People would not have believed any natural explanation, though they might have felt inclined to persecute the man when stripped of his magical character: we should also consider how far the general belief might influence even the man himself; how far he could in his inmost mind draw the distinction between what we call natural philosophy and what the age considered magic—a lawful if a riskful power over nature and spirits, by means of occult knowledge. An allowance is further to be made for the stories as they have come down to us; a distinction is to be drawn between the actual facts and the fancy of the narrator, between the reality and the romance of magic.

Sorcery and witchcraft (to which, notwithstanding its title, Mr. Wright's book chiefly relates) was a more vulgar pursuit, and is a more difficult matter to determine. The true magician was a master over both the seen and the unseen world. His art could compel spirits or demons to obey him, however much against their will. It seems a question whether a spell of sufficient potency could not control Satan himself. The witch or wizard was a vulgar being, a mere slave of the Evil One, with no original power, very limited in derived power, and, it would appear, with no means of acting directly except upon the elements. The facts relating to witchcraft, being often matter of legal record, are more numerous and more correctly narrated than those relating to magic. The difficulty of fixing the exact boundary between truth and falsehood, guilt and innocence, in the case of witchcraft, is not so easily settled as the sciolist in liberal philosophy imagines. Of course we all know that men and women could not travel through the air on broomsticks, or cause storms, or afflict[Pg 248] cattle. Their innocence of the intention is not always so certain: their power over a nervous or weakly person, especially in bad health, might really, through the influence of imagination, produce the death threatened, and the miserable patient might pine away as his real or supposed waxen image slowly melted before the fire. At a time when the belief in witchcraft was entertained by society in general, as well as by the majority of educated men, it is not likely that the persons who were generally accused of it were skeptical on the subject. Their innocence would lie, not in their disbelief of its power, but in their rejection of the practice. That an accusation of witchcraft was sometimes made from political, religious, or personal motives, is true; and numbers of innocent victims were sacrificed in times of public mania on the subject. The question is, whether many did not attempt unlawful arts in full belief of their efficacy; and whether some, a compound of the self-dupe and the impostor, did not make use of their reputed power to indulge in the grossest license and to perpetrate abominable crimes.

The great difficulty, however, is the confessions. In many cases, no doubt, the victims, worn down by terror and torture, said whatever their examiners seemed to wish them to say; in other cases, their statements were exaggerated by the reporters. Yet enough remains, after every deduction, to render witches' confessions a very curious mental problem. Was it vision, or monomania, or nervous delusion, all influenced by foregone conclusion? or was it, as the mesmerists seem to hold, an instance of clairvoyance in a high degree? The case of Gaufridi is of this puzzling nature. Gaufridi was a French priest of licentious character, who succeeded by the opportunities which his priestly influence gave him, or by some pretended supernatural arts. His crimes were discovered through the confession of one of his victims, a nun whom he had abused before profession. After a time, she appeared to be possessed; and, under treatment by a celebrated exorcist, (an inferior hand having failed,) she, or the demon in possession, among other things accused Gaufridi. Her revelations may be resolved into an imposture instigated by revenge, or a pious fraud caused by remorse, or hysterical fits, with utterance shaped by memory; but what can be said of Gaufridi's, made with a full knowledge of consequences?

"The priests who conducted this affair seem almost to have lost sight of Louis Gaufridi, in their anxiety to collect these important evidences of the true faith. It was not till towards the close of winter that the reputed wizard was again thought of. A warrant was then obtained against him, and he was taken into custody, and confined in the prison of the conciergerie at Marseilles. On the fifth of March he was for the first time confronted with sister Magdalen, but without producing the result anticipated by his persecutors. Little information is given as to the subsequent proceedings against him; but he appears to have been treated with great severity, and to have persevered in asserting his innocence. Sister Magdalen, or rather the demon within her, gave information of certain marks on his body which had been placed there by the Evil One; and on search they were found exactly as described. It is not to be wondered at, if, after the intercourse which had existed between them, sister Magdalen were able to give such information. Still Gaufridi continued unshaken, and he made no confession; until at length, on Easter Eve, the twenty-sixth of March, 1611, a full avowal of his guilt was drawn from him, we are not told through what means, by two Capuchins of the Convent of Aix, to which place he had been transferred for his trial. At the beginning of April, another witness, the Demoiselle Victoire de Courbier, came forward to depose that she had been bewitched by the renegade priest, who had obtained her love by his charms; and he made no objection to their adding this new incident to his confession.

"Gaufridi acknowledged the truth of all that had been said by sister Magdalen or by her demon. He said that an uncle, who had died many years ago, had left him his books, and that one day, about five or six years before his arrest on this accusation, he was looking them over, when he found amongst them a volume of magic, in which were some writings in French verse, accompanied with strange characters. His curiosity was excited, and he began to read it; when, to his great astonishment and consternation, the demon appeared in a human form, and said to him, 'What do you desire of me, for it is you who have called me?' Gaufridi was young, and easily tempted; and when he had recovered from his surprise and was reassured by the manner and conversation of his visitor, he replied to his offer, 'If you have power to give me what I desire, I ask for two things: first, that I shall prevail with all the women I like; secondly, that I shall be esteemed and honored above all the priests of this country, and enjoy the respect of men of wealth and honor.' We may see, perhaps, through these wishes, the reason why Gaufridi was persecuted by the rest of the clergy. The demon promised to grant him his desires, on condition that he would give up to him entirely his 'body, soul, and works;' to which Gaufridi agreed, excepting only from the latter the administration of the holy sacrament, to which he was bound by his vocation as a priest of the church.

"From this time Louis Gaufridi felt an extreme pleasure in reading the magical book, and it always had the effect of bringing the demon to attend upon him. At the end of two or three days the agreement was arranged and completed, and, it having been fairly written on parchment, the priest signed it with his blood. The tempter then told him, that whenever he breathed on maid or woman, provided his breath reached their nostrils, they would immediately become desperately in love with him. He soon made a trial of the demon's gift, and used it so copiously that, he became in a short time a general object of attraction to the women of the district. He said that he often amused himself with exciting their passions when he had no intention of requiting them, and he declared that he had already made more than a thousand victims.

"At length he took an extraordinary fancy to the young Magdalen de la Palude; but he found[Pg 249] her difficult of approach, on account of the watchfulness of her mother, and he only overcame the difficulty by breathing on the mother before he seduced the daughter. He thus gained his purpose; took the girl to the cave in the manner she had already described, and became so much attached to her that he often repeated his charm on her, to make her more devoted in her love. Three days after their first visit to the cave, he gave her a familiar named Esmodes. Finding her now perfectly devoted to his will, he determined to marry her to Beelzebub, the prince of the demons; and she readily agreed to his proposal. He immediately called the demon prince, who appeared in the form of a handsome gentleman; and she then renounced her baptism and Christianity, signed the agreement with her blood, and received the demon's mark....

"The priest gave an account of the Sabbaths, at which he was a regular attendant. When he was ready to go—it was usually at night—he either went to the open window of his chamber, or left the chamber, locking the door, and proceeded into the open air. There Lucifer made his appearance, and took him in an instant to their place of meeting, where the orgies of the witches and sorcerers lasted usually from three to four hours. Gaufridi divided the victims of the Evil One into three classes: the masqués, (perhaps the novices,) the sorcerers, and the magicians. On arriving at the meeting, they all worshipped the demon according to their several ranks; the masqués falling flat on their faces, the sorcerers kneeling with their heads and bodies humbly bowed down, and the magicians, who stood highest in importance, only kneeling. After this they all went through the formality of denying God and the Saints. Then they had a diabolical service in burlesque of that of the church, at which the Evil One served as priest in a violet chasuble; the elevation of the demon host was announced by a wooden bell, and the sacrament itself was made of unleavened bread. The scenes which followed resembled those of other witch-meetings. Gaufridi acknowledged that he took Magdalen thither, and that he made her swallow magical 'characters' that were to increase her love to him; yet he proved unfaithful to her at these Sabbaths with a multitude of persons, and among the rest with 'a princess of Friesland.' The unhappy sorcerer confessed, among other things, that his demon was his constant companion, though generally invisible to all but himself; and that he only left him when he entered the church of the Capuchins to perform his religious duties, and then he waited for him outside the church door.

"Gaufridi was tried before the Court of Parliament of Provence at Aix. His confession, the declaration of the demons, the marks on his body, and other circumstances, left him no hope of mercy. Judgment was given against him on the last day of April, and the same day it was put in execution. He was burnt alive."

Narratives of Sorcery and Magic is a skilful and popular selection of stories or narratives relating to the subject, not a philosophic treatise. We are carried to France, Germany, England, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, and America, by turns. We have the most remarkable trials for witchcraft in these countries, as well as cases in which supernatural agency was only an incidental part,—as that of the Earl and Countess of Somerset, for the murder of Overbury.

By way of showing that Mr. Wright is by no means an indifferent story-teller, we may refer to the following legend:

"The demons whom the sorcerer served seem rarely to have given any assistance to their victims when the latter fell into the hands of the judicial authorities; but if they escaped punishment by the agency of the law, they were only reserved for a more terrible end. We have already seen the fate of the woman of Berkeley. A writer of the thirteenth century has preserved a story of a man who, by his compact with the Evil One, had collected together great riches. One day, while he was absent in the fields, a stranger of suspicious appearance came to his house and asked for him. His wife replied that he was not at home. The stranger said, 'Tell him when he returns, that to-night he must pay me my debt.' The wife replied that she was not aware that he owed any thing to him. 'Tell, him,' said the stranger, with a ferocious look, 'that I will have my debt to-night.' The husband returned, and when informed of what had taken place, merely remarked that the demand was just. He then ordered his bed to be made that night in an outhouse, where he had never slept before, and he shut himself in it with a lighted candle. The family were astonished, and could not resist the impulse to gratify their curiosity by looking through the holes in the door. They beheld the same stranger, who had entered without opening the door, seated beside his victim, and they appeared to be counting large sums of money. Soon they began to quarrel about their accounts, and were proceeding from threats to blows, when the servants, who were looking through the door, burst it open, that they might help their master. The light was instantly extinguished; and when another was brought, no traces could be found of either of the disputants, nor were they ever afterwards heard of. The suspicious-looking stranger was the demon himself, who had carried away his victim."

FOOTNOTES:

[I] Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, from the most Authentic Sources. By Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A., F.S.A., &c., &c. In two volumes. Published by Bentley.

From the Examiner.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE AND HIS GENIUS.

Hartley Coleridge was a poet whose life was so deplorable a contradiction to the strength and subtlety of his genius, and the capability and range of his intellect, that perhaps no such sad example has ever found similar record.[J] Indeed we are obliged with sincere grief to doubt, whether, as written here, the memoir should have been written at all. With much respect for Mr. Derwent Coleridge, who is himself no unworthy inheritor of a great name, his white neckcloth is somewhat too prominently seen in the matter. There are too many labored explainings, starched apologies, and painful accountings for this and that. The writer was probably not conscious of the effort he was making, yet the effort is but too manifest, A simple statement of facts, a kindly allowance for circumstances,[Pg 250] a mindful recollection of what his father was in physical as well as mental organization, extracts from Hartley's own letters, recollections of those among whom his latter life was passed—this, as it seems to us, should have sufficed. Mr. Derwent Coleridge brings too many church-bred and town-bred notions to the grave design of moralizing and philosophizing his brother's simple life and wayward self-indulgences. His motives will be respected, and his real kindness not misunderstood; but it will be felt that a quiet and unaffected little memoir of that strange and sorry career, and of those noble nor wholly wasted powers, remains still to be written.

Meanwhile we gratefully accept the volumes before us, which in their contents are quite as decisive of Hartley Coleridge's genius as of what it might have achieved in happier circumstances. A more beautiful or more sorrowful book has not been published in our day.

Hartley Coleridge was the eldest son of the poet, and with much of his father's genius (which in him, however, took a more simple and practical shape than consisted with the wider and more mystical expanse of his father's mind), inherited also the defects of his organization and temperament. What would have become of the elder Coleridge but for the friends in whose home his later years found a refuge, no one can say. With no such friends or home, poor Hartley became a cast-away. After a childhood of singular genius, manifested in many modes and forms, and described with charming effect by his brother in the best passages and anecdotes of the memoir, he was launched without due discipline or preparation into the University of Oxford, where the catastrophe of his life befell. He had first fairly shown his powers when the hard doom went forth which condemned them to waste and idleness. He obtained a fellowship-elect at Oriel, was dismissed on the ground of intemperance before his probationary year had passed, and wandered for the rest of his days by the scenes with which his father most wished to surround his childhood—

—listening with hardly less than his father's delight to the sounds and voices of nature, in homely intimacy with all homely folk, uttering now and then piercing words of wisdom or regret, teaching little children in village schools, and——.

Well, it would be perhaps too much to say that he continued to justify the rejection of the Oriel fellows. Who knows how largely that event may itself have contributed to what it too hastily anticipated and too finally condemned? It appears certain that the weakness had not thus early made itself known to Hartley's general acquaintance at the University. Mr. Dyce had nothing painful to remember of him, but describes him as a young man possessing an intellect of the highest order, with great simplicity of character and considerable oddity of manner; and he hints that the college authorities had probably resented, in the step they took, certain attacks more declamatory than serious which Hartley had got into the habit of indulging against all established institutions. Mr. Derwent Coleridge touches this part of the subject very daintily. "My brother was, however, I am afraid, more sincere in his invectives against establishments, as they appeared to his eyes at Oxford, and elsewhere, than Mr. Dyce kindly supposes." How poor Hartley would have laughed at that!

One thing to the last he continued. The simplicity of character which Mr. Dyce attributes to his youth remained with him till long after his hair was prematurely white. As Wordsworth hoped for him in his childhood, he kept

—and some delightful recollections of his ordinary existence from day to day among the lakes and mountains, and in the service of the village schools, are contributed to his brother's Memoir. Here is one, from one of the scholars he taught:

"I first saw Hartley in the beginning, I think, of 1837, when I was at Sedbergh, and he heard us our lesson in Mr. Green's parlor. My impression of him was what I conceived Shakespeare's idea of a gentleman to be, something which we like to have in a picture. He was dressed in black, his hair, just touched with gray, fell in thick waves down his back, and he had a frilled shirt on; and there was a sort of autumnal ripeness and brightness about him. His shrill voice, and his quick, authoritative 'right! right!' and the chuckle with which he translated 'rerum repetundarum' as 'peculation, a very common vice in governors of all ages,' after which he took a turn round the sofa—all struck me amazingly; his readiness astonished us all, and even himself, as he afterwards told me; for, during the time he was at the school, he never had to use a dictionary once, though we read Dalzell's selections from Aristotle and Longinus, and several plays of Sophocles. He took his idea, so he said, from what De Quincy says of one of the Eton masters fagging the lesson, to the great amusement of the class, and, while waiting for the lesson, he used to read a newspaper. While acting as second master he seldom occupied the master's desk, but sat among the boys on one of the school benches. He very seldom came to school in a morning, never till about eleven, and in the afternoon about an hour after we had begun. I never knew the least liberty taken with him, though he was kinder and more familiar than was then the fashion with masters. His translations were remarkably vivid; of [Greek: mogera mogerôs] 'toiling and moiling;' and of some ship or other in the Philoctetes, which he pronounced to be 'scudding under main-top sails,' our conceptions became intelligible. Many of his translations were written down with his initials, and I saw some, not a long while ago, in the Sophocles[Pg 251] of a late Tutor at Queen's College, Oxford, who had them from tradition. He gave most attention to our themes; out of those sent in he selected two or three, which he then read aloud and criticised; and once, when they happened to agree, remarked there was always a coincidence of thought amongst great men. Out of school he never mixed with the boys, but was sometimes seen, to their astonishment, running along the fields with his arms outstretched, and talking to himself. He had no pet scholars except one, a little fair-haired boy, who he said ought to have been a girl. He told me that was the only boy he ever loved, though he always loved little girls. He was remarkably fond of the travelling shows that occasionally visited the village. I have seen him clap his hands with delight; indeed, in most of the simple delights of country life, he was like a child. This is what occurs to me at present of what he was when I first knew him; and, indeed, my after recollections are of a similarly fragmentary kind, consisting only of those little, numerous, noiseless, every-day acts of kindness, the sum of which makes a Christian life. His love of little children, his sympathy with the poor and suffering, his hatred of oppression, the beauty and the grace of his politeness before women, and his high manliness,—these are the features which I shall never forget while I have any thing to remember."

"On his way to one of these parties he called on me, and I could not help saying, 'How well you look in a white neckcloth!' 'I wish you could see me sometimes,' he replied; 'if I had only black-silk stockings and shoe-buckles I should be quite a gentleman.' Those who had only seen him in the careless dress that he chose to adopt in the lanes—his trowsers, which were generally too long, doubled half way up the leg, unbrushed, and often splashed; his hat brushed the wrong way, for he never used an umbrella; and his wild, unshaven, weather-beaten look—were amazed at his metamorphose into such a faultless gentleman as he appeared when he was dressed for the evening. 'I hate silver forks with fish,' he said; 'I can't manage them.' So did Dr. Arnold, I told him. 'That's capital; I am glad of such an authority. Do you know I never understood the gladiator's excellence till the other day. The way in which my brother eats fish with a silver fork made the thing quite clear.'

"He often referred to his boyish days, when he told me he nearly poisoned half the house with his chemical infusions, and spoiled the pans, with great delight. The 'Pilgrim's Progress' was an early favorite with him. 'It was strange,' he said, 'how it had been overlooked. Children are often misunderstood. When I was a baby I have often been in the greatest terror, when, to all appearance, I was quite still;—so frightened that I could not make a noise. Crying, I believe, is oftener a sign of happiness than the reverse. I was looked upon as a remarkable child. My mother told me, when I was born she thought me an ugly red thing; but my father took me up and said, 'There's no sweeter baby any where than this.' He always thought too much of me. I was very dull at school, and hated arithmetic; I always had to count on my fingers.

"He once took me to the little cottage where he lived by the Brathey, when Charles Lloyd and he were school-companions. Mrs. Nicholson, of Ambleside, told me of a donkey-race which they had from the market-cross to the end of the village and back, and how Hartley came in last, and minus his white straw hat."

Those who remember the ordinary (and most extraordinary) dress that hung about his small eager person, will smile at this entry in his journal of a visit to Rydal chapel, and the reflections awakened therein:

"17th.—Sunday.—At Rydal chapel. Alas! I have been Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens of late. Would I could say with assurance, Nunc interare cursus cogor relictos. I never saw Axiologus (Wordsworth) look so venerable. His cape cloak has such a gravity about it. Old gentlemen should never wear light great coats unless they be military; and even then Uncle Toby's Roquelaure would be more becoming than all the frogs in Styx. On the other hand, loose trowsers should never invest the nether limbs of led. It looks as if the Septuagenarian were ashamed of a diminished calf. The sable silk is good and clerical, so are the gray pearl and the partridge. I revere gray worsted and ridge and furrow for [Greek: Omak rites] his sake, but perhaps the bright white lamb's wool doth most set off the leg of an elderly man. The hose should be drawn over the knees, unless the rank and fortune require diamond buckles. Paste or Bristol stones should never approach a gentleman of any age. Roomy shoes, not of varnished leather. Broad shoe-buckles, well polished. Cleanliness is an ornament to youth, but an indispensable necessity to old age. Breeches, velvet or velveteen, or some other solid stuff. There may be serious objections to reviving the trunk breeches of our ancestors. I am afraid that hoops would follow in their train. But the flapped waistcoat, the deep cuffs, and guarded pocket-holes, the low collar, I should hail with pleasure; that is, for grandfathers and men of grandfatherly years. I was about to add the point-lace ruffles, cravat, and frill, but I pause in consideration of the miseries and degraded state of the lace makers."

Occasional passages in his letters are very beautiful, and very sad. Here is one—adverting to some attack made upon him:

"'This jargon,' said my orthodox reviewer, 'might be excused in an alderman of London, but not in a Fellow elect of Oriel,' or something to the same purpose, evidently designing to recall to memory the most painful passage of a life not over happy. But perhaps it is as well to let it alone. The writer might be some one in whom my kindred are interested; for I am as much alone in my revolt as Abdiel in his constancy."

We are glad to see valuable testimony borne by Mr. James Spedding as to his habits having left unimpaired his moral and spiritual sensibility:

"Of his general character and way of life I might have been able to say something to the purpose, if I had seen more of him. But though he was a person so interesting to me in himself, and with so many subjects of interest in common with me, that a little intercourse went a great way; so that I feel as if I knew him much better than many persons of whom I have seen much more; yet I have in fact been very seldom in his company. If I should say ten times altogether, I[Pg 252] should not be understating the number; and this is not enough to qualify me for a reporter, when there must be so many competent observers living, who really knew him well. One very strong impression, however, with which I always came away from him, may be worth mentioning; I mean, that his moral and spiritual sensibilities seemed to be absolutely untouched by the life he was leading. The error of his life sprung, I suppose, from moral incapacity of some kind—his way of life seemed in some things destructive of self-respect; and was certainly regarded by himself with a feeling of shame, which in his seasons of self-communion became passionate; and yet it did not at all degrade his mind. It left, not his understanding only, but also his imagination and feelings, perfectly healthy,—free, fresh, and pure. His language might be sometimes what some people would call gross, but that I think was not from any want of true delicacy, but from a masculine disdain of false delicacy; and his opinions, and judgment, and speculations, were in the highest degree refined and elevated—full of chivalrous generosity, and purity, and manly tenderness. Such, at least, was my invariable impression. It always surprised me, but fresh observations always confirmed it."

When Wordsworth heard of his death, he was much affected, and gave the touching direction to his brother:—"Let him lie by us: he would have wished it." It was accordingly so arranged.

"The day following he walked over with me to Grasmere—to the churchyard, a plain enclosure of the olden time, surrounding the old village church, in which lay the remains of his wife's sister, his nephew, and his beloved daughter. Here, having desired the sexton to measure out the ground for his own and for Mrs. Wordsworth's grave, he bade him measure out the space of a third grave for my brother, immediately beyond.

"'When I lifted up my eyes from my daughter's grave,' he exclaimed, 'he was standing there!' pointing to the spot where my brother had stood on the sorrowful occasion to which he alluded. Then turning to the sexton, he said, 'Keep the ground for us,—we are old people, and it cannot be for long.'"

"In the grave thus marked out, my brother's remains were laid on the following Thursday, and in little more than a twelvemonth his venerable and venerated friend was brought to occupy his own. They lie in the south-east angle of the churchyard, not far from a group of trees, with the little beck, that feeds the lake with its clear waters, murmuring by their side. Around them are the quiet mountains."

We have often expressed a high opinion of Hartley Coleridge's poetical genius. It was a part of the sadness of his life that he could not concentrate his powers, in this or any other department of his intellect, to high and continuous aims—but we were not prepared for such rich proof of its exercise, within the limited field assigned to it, as these volumes offer. They largely and lastingly contribute to the rare stores of true poetry. In the sonnet Hartley Coleridge was a master unsurpassed by the greatest. To its "narrow plot of ground" his habits, when applied in the cultivation of the muse, most naturally led him—and here he may claim no undeserved companionship even with Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth. We take a few—with affecting personal reference in all of them.

Hast thou not seen an aged rifted tower,
Meet habitation for the Ghost of Time,
Where fearful ravage makes decay sublime,
And destitution wears the face of power?
Yet is the fabric deck'd with many a flower
Of fragrance wild, and many-dappled hues,
Gold streak'd with iron-brown and nodding blue,
Making each ruinous chink a fairy bower.
E'en such a thing methinks I fain would be,
Should Heaven appoint me to a lengthen'd age;
So old in look, that Young and Old may see
The record of my closing pilgrimage:
Yet, to the last, a rugged wrinkled thing
To which young sweetness may delight to cling!

Pains I have known, that cannot be again,
And pleasures too that never can be more:
For loss of pleasure I was never sore,
But worse, far worse is to feel no pain.
The throes and agonies of a heart explain
Its very depth of want at inmost core;
Prove that it does believe, and would adore,
And doth with ill for ever strive and strain.
I not lament for happy childish years,
For loves departed, that have had their day,
Or hopes that faded when my head was gray;
For death hath left me last of my compeers:
But for the pain I felt, the gushing tears
I used to shed when I had gone astray.

A lonely wanderer upon the earth am I,
The waif of nature—like uprooted weed
Borne by the stream, or like a shaken reed,
A frail dependent of the fickle sky.
Far, far away, are all my natural kin;
The mother that erewhile hath hush'd my cry,
Almost hath grown a mere fond memory.
Where is my sister's smile? my brother's boisterous din?
Ah! nowhere now. A matron grave and sage,
A holy mother is that sister sweet.
And that bold brother is a pastor meet
To guide, instruct, reprove a sinful age,
Almost I fear, and yet I fain would greet;
So far astray hath been my pilgrimage.

How shall a man fore-doom'd to lone estate,
Untimely old, irreverently gray,
Much like a patch of dusky snow in May,
Dead sleeping in a hollow—all too late—
How shall so poor a thing congratulate
The blest completion of a patient wooing,
Or how commend a younger man for doing
What ne'er to do hath been his fault or fate?
There is a fable, that I once did read.
Of a bad angel that was someway good,
And therefore on the brink of Heaven he stood,
Looking each way, and no way could proceed;
Till at the last he purged away his sin
By loving all the joy he saw within.

Before we shut the volumes—which will often and often be re-opened by their readers—we may instance, in proof of the variety of[Pg 253] his verse, some masterly heroic couplets on the character of Dryden, which will be seen in a series of admirable "sketches of English poets" found written on the fly-leaves and covers of his copy of Anderson's British Poets. The successors of Dryden are not less admirably handled, and there are some sketches of Wilkie, Dodsley, Langhorne, and rhymers of that class, inimitable for their truth and spirit.

FOOTNOTES:

[J] Poems by Hartley Coleridge. With a Memoir of his Life. By his Brother. Two vols. Moxon.

From the Cincinnati Commercial Advertiser.

LYRA.—A LAMENT.

BY ALICE CAREY.

Maidens, whose tresses shine,
Crowned with daffodil and eglantine,
Or, from their stringed buds of brier-roses,
Bright as the vermeil closes
Of April twilights, after sobbing rains,
Fall down in rippled skeins
And golden tangles, low
About your bosoms, dainty as new snow;
While the warm shadows blow in softest gales
Fair hawthorn flowers and cherry blossoms white
Against your kirtles, like the froth from pails
O'er brimmed with milk at night,
When lowing heifers bury their sleek flanks
In winrows of sweet hay, or clover banks—
Come near and hear, I pray,
My plained roundelay:
Where creeping vines o'errun the sunny leas,
Sadly, sweet souls, I watch your shining bands
Filling with stained hands
Your leafy cups with lush red strawberries;
Or deep in murmurous glooms,
In yellow mosses full of starry blooms,
Sunken at ease—each busied as she likes,
Or stripping from the grass the beaded dews,
Or picking jagged leaves from the slim spikes
Of tender pinks—with warbled interfuse
Of poesy divine,
That haply long ago
Some wretched borderer of the realm of wo
Wrought to a dulcet line:
If in your lovely years
There be a sorrow that may touch with tears
The eyelids piteously, they must be shed
For Lyra, dead.
The mantle of the May
Was blown almost within summer's reach,
And all the orchard trees,
Apple, and pear, and peach,
Were full of yellow bees,
Flown from their hives away.
The callow dove upon the dusty beam
Fluttered its little wings in streaks of light,
And the gray swallow twittered full in sight—
Harmless the unyoked team
Browsed from the budding elms, and thrilling lays
Made musical prophecies of brighter days;
And all went jocundly; I could but say.
Ah! well-a-day!
What time spring thaws the wold,
And in the dead leaves come up sprouts of gold,
And green and ribby blue, that after hours
Encrown with flowers;
Heavily lies my heart
From all delights apart,
Even as an echo hungry for the wind,
When fail the silver-kissing waves to unbind
The music bedded in the drowsy strings
Of the sea's golden shells—
That, sometimes, with their honeyed murmurings
Fill all its underswells:
For o'er the sunshine fell a shadow wide
When Lyra died.
When sober Autumn, with his mist-bound brows,
Sits drearily beneath the fading boughs,
And the rain, chilly cold,
Wrings from his beard of gold,
And as some comfort for his lonesome hours,
Hides in his bosom stalks of withered flowers,
I think about what leaves are drooping round
A smoothly shapen mound;
And if the wild wind cries
Where Lyra lies,
Sweet shepherds, softly blow
Ditties most sad and low—
Piping on hollow reeds to your pent sheep—
Calm be my Lyra's sleep.
Unvexed with dream of the rough briers that pull
From his strayed lambs the wool!
O, star, that tremblest dim
Upon the welkin's rim,
Send with thy milky shadows from above
Tidings about my love;
If that some envious wave
Made his untimely grave,
Or if, so softening half my wild regrets,
Some coverlid of bluest violets
Was softly put aside,
What time he died!
Nay, come not, piteous maids,
Out of the murmurous shades;
But keep your tresses crowned as you may
With eglantine and daffodillies gay,
And with the dews of myrtles wash your cheek,
When flamy streaks,
Uprunning the gray orient, tell of morn—
While I, forlorn,
Pour all my heart in tears and plaints, instead,
For Lyra, dead.

From Fraser's Magazine.

MY NOVEL:

OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.

BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.

Continued from page 126.

PART VIII.—CHAPTER XIII.

Mr. Dale had been more than a quarter of an hour conversing with Mrs. Avenel, and had seemingly made little progress in the object of his diplomatic mission, for now, slowly drawing on his gloves, he said,—

"I grieve to think, Mrs. Avenel, that you should have so hardened your heart—yes—you must pardon me—it is my vocation to speak stern truths. You cannot say that I have not kept faith with you, but I must now invite you to remember that I specially reserved to myself the right of exercising a discretion to act as I judged best, for the child's interests, on any future occasion; and it was upon this understanding that you gave me the promise, which you would now evade, of providing for him when he came into manhood."

"I say I will provide for him. I say that you may 'prentice him in any distant town, and by-and-by we will stock a shop for him. What would you have more, sir, from folks like us, who have kept shop ourselves? It ain't reasonable what you ask, sir!"

"My dear friend," said the Parson, "what I ask of you at present is but to see him—to receive him kindly—to listen to his conversation—to judge for yourselves. We can have but a common object—that your grandson should succeed in life, and do you credit. Now, I doubt very much whether we can effect this by making him a small shopkeeper."

"And has Jane Fairfield, who married a common carpenter, brought him up to despise small shopkeepers?" exclaimed Mrs. Avenel, angrily.

"Heaven forbid! Some of the first men in England have been the sons of small shopkeepers. But is it a crime in them, or their parents, if their talents have lifted them into such rank or renown as the haughtiest duke might envy? England were not England if a man must rest where his father began."

"Good!" said, or rather grunted, an approving voice, but neither Mrs. Avenel nor the Parson heard it.

"All very fine," said Mrs. Avenel, bluntly. "But to send a boy like that to the university—where's the money to come from?"[Pg 254]

"My dear Mrs. Avenel," said the Parson, coaxingly, "the cost need not be great at a small college at Cambridge; and if you will pay half the expense, I will pay the other half. I have no children of my own, and can afford it."

"That's very handsome in you, sir," said Mrs. Avenel, somewhat touched, yet still not graciously, "But the money is not the only point."

"Once at Cambridge," continued Mr. Dale, speaking rapidly, "at Cambridge, where the studies are mathematical—that is, of a nature for which he has shown so great an aptitude—and I have no doubt he will distinguish himself; if he does, he will obtain, on leaving, what is called a fellowship—that is a collegiate dignity accompanied by an income on which he could maintain himself until he made his way in life. Come, Mrs. Avenel, you are well off; you have no relations nearer to you in want of your aid. Your son, I hear, has been very fortunate."

"Sir," said Mrs. Avenel, interrupting the Parson, "it is not because my son Richard is an honor to us, and is a good son, and has made his fortin, that we are to rob him of what we have to leave, and give it to a boy whom we know nothing about, and who, in spite of what you say, can't bring upon us any credit at all."

"Why?" exclaimed Mrs. Avenel, fiercely—"why? you know why. No, I don't want him to rise in life; I don't want folks to be speiring and asking about him. I think it is a very wicked thing to have put fine notions in his head, and I am sure my daughter Fairfield could not have done it herself. And now, to ask me to rob Richard, and bring out a great boy—who's been a gardener, or ploughman, or such like—to disgrace a gentleman who keeps his carriage, as my son Richard does—I would have you to know, sir, no! I won't do it, and there's an end to the matter."

During the last two or three minutes, and just before that approving "good" had responded to the Parson's popular sentiment, a door communicating with an inner room had been gently opened, and stood ajar; but this incident neither party had even noticed. But now the door was thrown boldly open, and the traveller whom the Parson had met at the inn walked up to Mr. Dale, and said, "No! that's not the end of the matter. You say the boy's a cute, clever lad?"

"Why, that this reverend gentleman thinks so highly of my sister Fairfield's boy that he offers to pay half of his keep at college. Sir, I'm very much obliged to you, and there's my hand, if you'll take it."

The Parson jumped up, overjoyed, and, with a triumphant glance towards Mrs. Avenel, shook hands heartily with Mr. Richard.

"Now," said the latter, "just put on your hat, sir, and take a stroll with me, and we'll discuss the thing business-like. Women don't understand business; never talk to women on business."

With these words, Mr. Richard drew out a cigar-case, selected a cigar, which he applied to the candle, and walked into the hall.

Mrs. Avenel caught hold of the Parson. "Sir, you'll be on your guard with Richard. Remember your promise."

"He? No! And you see he did not overhear more than what he says. I'm sure you're a gentleman, and won't go agin your word."

"My word was conditional; but I will promise you never to break the silence without more reason than I think there is here for it. Indeed, Mr. Richard Avenel seems to save all necessity for that."

CHAPTER XIV.

The Parson joined Mr. Richard Avenel on the road. It was a fine night, and the moon clear and shining.

"So, then," said Mr. Richard, thoughtfully, "poor Jane, who was always the drudge of the family, has contrived to bring up her son well; and the boy is really what you say, eh?—could make a figure at college?"

"I am sure of it," said the Parson, hooking himself on to the arm which Mr Avenel proffered.

"I should like to see him," said Richard. "Has he any manner? Is he genteel, or a mere country lout?"

"Indeed, he speaks with so much propriety, and has so much modest dignity, I might say, about him, that there's many a rich gentleman who would be proud of such a son."

"It is odd," observed Richard, "what difference there is in families. There's Jane now—who can't read nor write, and was just fit to be a workman's wife—had not a thought above her station; and when I think of my poor sister Nora—you would not believe it, sir, but she was the most elegant creature in the world—yes, even as a child, (she was but a child when I went off to America.) And often, as I was getting on in life, often I used to say to myself, 'My little Nora shall be a lady after all. Poor thing—but she died young.'"

The Parson kindly pressed the arm on which he leaned, and said, after a pause—

"Nothing refines us like education, sir. I believe your sister Nora had received much instruction, and had the talents to profit by it. It is the same with your nephew."

"I'll see him," said Richard, stamping his foot firmly on the ground, "and if I like him, I'll be as good as a father to him. Look you, Mr.—what's your name, sir?"[Pg 255]

"Mr. Dale, look you, I'm a single man. Perhaps I may marry some day; perhaps I shan't. I'm not going to throw myself away. If I can get a lady of quality, why—but that's neither here nor there; meanwhile, I should be glad of a nephew whom I need not be ashamed of. You see, sir, I'm a new man, the builder of my own fortunes; and, though I have picked up a little education—I don't well know how—as I scrambled on, still, now I come back to the old country, I'm well aware that I am not exactly a match for those d——d aristocrats—don't show so well in a drawing-room as I could wish. I could be a Parliament man if I liked, but I might make a goose of myself; so, all things considered, if I can get a sort of junior partner to do the polite work, and show off the goods, I think the house of Avenel & Co. might become a pretty considerable honor to the Britishers. You understand me, sir?"

"Now," continued the New Man, "I'm not ashamed to have risen in life by my own merits; and I don't disguise what I've been. And, when I'm in my own grand house, I'm fond of saying, 'I landed at New-York with ten pounds in my purse, and here I am!' But it would not do to have the old folks with me. People take you with all your faults, if you're rich, but they won't swallow your family into the bargain. So, if I don't have my own father and mother, whom I love dearly, and should like to see sitting at table, with my servants behind their chairs, I could still less have sister Jane. I recollect her very well, and she can't have got genteeler as she's grown older. Therefore I beg you'll not set her on coming after me; it won't do by any manner of means. Don't say a word about me to her. But send the boy down here to his grandfather, and I'll see him quietly, you understand."

"Stuff! all boys are separated from their parents when they go into the world. So that's settled. Now, just tell me. I know the old folks always snubbed Jane—that is, mother did. My poor dear father never snubbed any of us. Perhaps mother has not behaved altogether well to Jane. But we must not blame her for that; you see this is how it happened. There were a good many of us, while father and mother kept shop in the High Street, so we were all to be provided for, anyhow; and Jane, being very useful and handy at work, got a place when she was a little girl, and had no time for learning. Afterwards my father made a lucky hit, in getting my Lord Lansmere's custom after an election, in which he did a great deal for the Blues, (for he was a famous electioneerer, my poor father.) My Lady stood godmother to Nora; and then most of my brothers and sisters died off, and father retired from business; and when he took Jane from service, she was so common-like that mother could not help contrasting her with Nora. You see Jane was their child when they were poor little shop people, with their heads scarce above water; and Nora was their child when they were well off, and had retired from trade, and lived genteel: so that makes a great difference. And mother did not quite look on her as on her own child. But it was Jane's own fault; for mother would have made it up with her if she had married the son of our neighbor the great linen-draper, as she might have done; but she would take Mark Fairfield, a common carpenter. Parents like best those of their children who succeed best in life. Natural. Why, they did not care for me until I came back the man I am. But to return to Jane: I'm afraid they've neglected her. How is she off?"

"Ah, just be good enough to give her this," and Richard took a bank-note of fifty pounds from his pocket-book. "You can say the old folks sent it to her; or that it is a present from Dick, without telling her he had come back from America."

"My dear sir," said the Parson, "I am more and more thankful to have made your acquaintance. This is a very liberal gift of yours; but your best plan will be to send it through your mother. For, though I don't want to betray any confidence you place in me, I should not know what to answer if Mrs. Fairfield began to question me about her brother. I never had but one secret to keep, and I hope I shall never have another. A secret is very like a lie!"

"You had a secret, then," said Richard, as he took back the bank-note. He had learned, perhaps, in America, to be a very inquisitive man. He added point-blank, "Pray what was it?"

"Why, what it would not be if I told you," said the Parson, with a forced laugh,—"a secret!"

"Well, I guess we're in a land of liberty. Do as you like. Now, I daresay you think me a very odd fellow to come out of my shell to you in this off-hand way. But I liked the look of you, even when we were at the inn together. And just now I was uncommonly pleased to find that, though you are a parson, you don't want to keep a man's nose down to a shop-board, if he has any thing in him. You're not one of the aristocrats—"

"Indeed," said the Parson with imprudent warmth, "it is not the character of the aristocracy of this country to keep people down. They make way amongst themselves for any man, whatever his birth, who has the talent and energy to aspire to their level. That's the especial boast of the British constitution, sir!"

"Oh, you think so do you!" said Mr. Richard,[Pg 256] looking sourly at the Parson. "I daresay those are the opinions in which you have brought up the lad. Just keep him yourself, and let the aristocracy provide for him!"

The parson's generous and patriotic warmth evaporated at once, at this sudden inlet of cold air into the conversation. He perceived that he had made a terrible blunder; and, as it was not his business at that moment to vindicate the British constitution, but to serve Leonard Fairfield, he abandoned the cause of the aristocracy with the most poltroon and scandalous abruptness. Catching at the arm which Mr. Avenel had withdrawn from him, he exclaimed:

"Indeed, sir, you are mistaken; I have never attempted to influence your nephew's political opinions. On the contrary, if, at his age, he can be said to have formed any opinion, I am greatly afraid—that is, I think his opinions are by no means sound—that is constitutional. I mean, I mean—" And the poor Parson, anxious to select a word that would not offend his listener, stopped short in lamentable confusion of idea.

Mr. Avenel enjoyed his distress for a moment, with a saturnine smile, and then said:

"Well, I calculate he's a Radical. Natural enough, if he has not got a sixpence to lose—all come right by-and-by. I'm not a Radical—at least not a destructive—much too clever a man for that, I hope. But I wish to see things very different from what they are. Don't fancy that I want the common people, who've got nothing, to pretend to dictate to their betters, because I hate to see a parcel of fellows, who are called lords and squires, trying to rule the roast. I think, sir, that it is men like me who ought to be at the top of the tree! and that's the long and short of it. What do you say?"

"I've not the least objection," said the crestfallen Parson basely. But, to do him justice, I must add that he did not the least know what he was saying!

CHAPTER XV.

Unconscious of the change in his fate which the diplomacy of the Parson sought to effect, Leonard Fairfield was enjoying the first virgin sweetness of fame; for the principal town in his neighborhood had followed the then growing fashion of the age, and set up a Mechanic's Institute; and some worthy persons interested in the formation of that provincial Athenæum had offered a prize for the best Essay on the Diffusion of Knowledge,—a very trite subject, on which persons seem to think they can never say too much, and on which there is, nevertheless, a great deal yet to be said. This prize Leonard Fairfield had recently won. His Essay had been publicly complimented by a full meeting of the Institute; it had been printed at the expense of the Society, and had been rewarded by a silver medal—delineative of Apollo crowning Merit, (poor Merit had not a rag to his back; but Merit, left only to the care of Apollo, never is too good a customer to the tailor!) And the County Gazette had declared that Britain had produced another prodigy in the person of Dr. Riccabocca's self-educated gardener.

Attention was now directed to Leonard's mechanical contrivances. The Squire, ever eagerly bent on improvements, had brought an engineer to inspect the lad's system of irrigation, and the engineer had been greatly struck by the simple means by which a very considerable technical difficulty had been overcome. The neighboring farmers now called Leonard "Mr. Fairfield," and invited him on equal terms, to their houses. Mr. Stirn had met him on the high road, touched his hat, and hoped that "he bore no malice." All this, I say, was the first sweetness of fame; and if Leonard Fairfield comes to be a great man, he will never find such sweets in the after fruit. It was this success which had determined the Parson on the step which he had just taken, and which he had long before anxiously meditated. For, during the last year or so, he had renewed his old intimacy with the widow and the boy; and he had noticed, with great hope and great fear, the rapid growth of an intellect, which now stood out from the lowly circumstances that surrounded it in bold and unharmonizing relief.

It was the evening after his return home that the Parson strolled up to the Casino. He put Leonard Fairfield's Prize Essay in his pocket. For he felt that he could not let the young man go forth into the world without a preparatory lecture, and he intended to scourge poor Merit with the very laurel wreath which it had received from Apollo. But in this he wanted Riccabocca's assistance; or rather he feared that, if he did not get the Philosopher on his side, the Philosopher might undo all the work of the Parson.

CHAPTER XVI.

A sweet sound came through the orange boughs, and floated to the ears of the Parson, as he wound slowly up the gentle ascent—so sweet, so silvery, he paused in delight—unaware, wretched man! that he was thereby conniving at Papistical errors. Soft it came, and sweet: softer and sweeter—"Ave Maria!" Violante was chanting the evening hymn to the Virgin Mother. The Parson at last distinguished the sense of the words, and shook his head with the pious shake of an orthodox Protestant. He broke from the spell resolutely, and walked on with a sturdy step. Gaining the terrace he found the little family seated under an awning. Mrs. Riccabocca knitting; the Signor with his arms folded on his breast: the book he had been reading a few moments before had fallen on the ground, and his dark eyes were soft and dreamy. Violante had finished her hymn, and seated herself on the ground between the two, pillowing her head on her step-mother's lap, but with her hand resting on her father's knee, and her gaze fixed fondly on his face.[Pg 257]

"Good evening," said Mr. Dale. Violante stole up to him, and, pulling him so as to bring his ear nearer to her lip, whispered,—"Talk to papa, do—and cheerfully; he is sad."

She escaped from him, as she said this, and appeared to busy herself with watering the flowers arranged on stands round the awning. But she kept her swimming lustrous eyes wistfully on her father.

"How fares it with you, my dear friend?" said the Parson kindly, as he rested his hand on the Italian's shoulder. "You must not let him get out of spirits, Mrs. Riccabocca."

"I am very ungrateful to her if I ever am so," said the poor Italian, with all his natural gallantry. Many a good wife, who thinks it is a reproach to her if her husband is ever 'out of spirits,' might have turned peevishly from that speech more elegant than sincere, and so have made bad worse. But Mrs. Riccabocca took her husband's proffered hand affectionately, and said with great naïveté:

"You see I am so stupid, Mr. Dale; I never knew I was so stupid till I married. But I am very glad you are come. You can get on some learned subject together, and then he will not miss so much his—"

"Very often. But you did not read them just then. The tongue touches where the tooth aches, but the best dentist cannot guess at the tooth unless one opens one's mouth. Basta! Can we offer you some wine of our own making, Mr. Dale?—it is pure."

Mrs. Riccabocca, too pleased to be in her natural element of domestic use, hurried into the house to prepare our national beverage. And the Parson, sliding into her chair, said—

"But you are dejected, then? Fie! If there's a virtue in the world at which we should always aim, it is cheerfulness."

"I don't dispute it," said Riccabocca, with a heavy sigh. "But though it is said by some Greek, who, I think, is quoted by your favorite Seneca, that a wise man carries his country with him at the soles of his feet, he can't carry also the sunshine."

"I tell you what it is," said the Parson bluntly, "you would have a much keener sense of happiness if you had much less esteem for philosophy."

"Does not the search after wisdom induce desires not satisfied in this small circle to which your life is confined? It is not so much your country for which you yearn, as it is for space to your intellect, employment for your thoughts, career for your aspirations."

"Easy to do that," answered the Parson. "Our wisdom teeth come last, and give us the most pain. And if you would just starve the mind a little, and nourish the heart more, you would be less of a philosopher, and more of a—" The Parson had the word "Christian" at the tip of his tongue: he suppressed a word that, so spoken, would have been exceedingly irritating, and substituted, with inelegant antithesis, "and more of a happy man!"

"Not you! For a man with such a heart as yours should never feel the want of the sunshine. My friend, we live in an age of over mental cultivation. We neglect too much the simple healthful outer life, in which there is so much positive joy. In turning to the world within us, we grow blind to this beautiful world without; in studying ourselves as men, we almost forget to look up to heaven, and warm to the smile of God."

The philosopher mechanically shrugged his shoulders, as he always did when another man moralised—especially if the moraliser were a priest; but there was no irony in his smile, as he answered thoughtfully—

"There is some truth in what you say. I own that we live too much as if we were all brain. Knowledge has its penalties and pains, as well as its prizes."

"I will tell you as we walk down to him after tea. At present, I am rather too much occupied with you."

"Trees are trees, and twigs twigs," said the Parson dogmatically; "but man is always growing till he falls into the grave. I think I have heard you say that you once had a narrow escape of a prison?"

"Just suppose that you were now in that prison, and that a fairy conjured up the prospect of this quiet home in a safe land; that you saw the orange trees in flower, felt the evening breeze on your cheek; beheld your child gay or sad, as you smiled or knit your brow; that within this phantom home was a woman, not, indeed, all your young romance might have dreamed of, but faithful and true, every beat of her heart all your own—would you not cry from the depth of the dungeon, "O fairy! such a change were a paradise." Ungrateful man! you want interchange for your mind, and your heart should suffice for all!"

"Come hither, my child," said Mr. Dale, turning round to Violante, who still stood among the flowers, out of hearing, but with watchful eyes. "Come hither," he said, opening big arms.

"Tell me, Violante, when you are alone in the fields or the garden, and have left your father looking pleased and serene, so that you have no care for him at your heart,—tell me, Violante, though you are all alone, with the flowers below and the birds singing overhead, do you feel that life itself is happiness or sorrow?"

"Happiness!" answered Violante, half shutting her eyes, and in a measured voice.

"Oh no, impossible! and it is never the same. Sometimes it is so still—so still—and sometimes so joyous, that I long for wings to fly up to God, and thank him!"

"O friend," said the Parson, "this is the true sympathy between life and nature, and thus we should feel ever, did we take more care to preserve the health and innocence of a child. We are told that we must become as children to enter into the kingdom of heaven; methinks we should also become as children to know what delight there is in our heritage of earth!"

CHAPTER XVII.

The maid servant (for Jackeymo was in the fields) brought the table under the awning, and, with the English luxury of tea, there were other drinks as cheap and as grateful on summer evenings—drinks which Jackeymo had retained and taught from the customs of the south—unebriate liquors, pressed from cooling fruits, sweetened with honey, and deliciously iced; ice should cost nothing in a country in which one is frozen up half the year! And Jackeymo, too, had added to our good, solid, heavy English bread, preparations of wheat much lighter, and more propitious to digestion—with those crisp grissins, which seem to enjoy being eaten, they make so pleasant a noise between one's teeth.

The Parson esteemed it a little treat to drink tea with the Riccaboccas. There was something of elegance and grace in that homely meal, at the poor exile's table, which pleased the eye as well as taste. And the very utensils, plain Wedgewood though they were, had a classical simplicity, which made Mrs. Hazeldean's old India delf, and Mrs. Dale's best Worcester china look tawdry and barbarous in comparison. For it was a Flaxman who gave designs to Wedgewood, and the most truly refined of all our manufactures in porcelain (if we do not look to the mere material) is in the reach of the most thrifty.

The little banquet was at first rather a silent one; but Riccabocca threw off his gloom, and became gay and animated. Then poor Mrs. Riccabocca smiled, and pressed the grissins; and Violante, forgetting all her stateliness, laughed and played tricks on the Parson, stealing away his cup of warm tea when his head was turned, and substituting iced cherry juice. Then the Parson got up and ran after Violante, making angry faces, and Violante dodged beautifully, till the Parson, fairly tired out, was too glad to cry "Peace," and come back to the cherry juice. Thus time rolled on, till they heard afar the stroke of the distant church clock, and Mr. Dale started up and cried, "But we shall be too late for Leonard. Come, naughty little girl, get your father his hat."

"The stars are no friends of mine," said Riccabocca, "and one never knows what may happen!"

"You have done me good," said Riccabocca, "but I hope I am not always so unreasonably melancholic as you seem to suspect. The evenings will sometimes appear long, and dull too, to a man whose thoughts on the past are almost his sole companions."

"She is so—," the bland Italian appeared to check some disparaging adjective, and mildly added, "so good, I allow; but you must own that we cannot have much in common."

"I own nothing of the sort. You have your house and your interests, your happiness and your lives, in common. We men are so exacting, we expect to find ideal nymphs and goddesses when we condescend to marry a mortal; and if we did, our chickens would be boiled to rags, and our mutton come up as cold as a stone."

"Per Bacco, you are an oracle," said Riccabocca, laughing. "But I am not so sceptical you are. I honor the fair sex too much. There are a great many women who realize the ideal of men to be found in—the poets!"

"There's my dear Mrs. Dale," resumed the Parson, not heeding this sarcastic compliment to the sex, but sinking his voice into a whisper, and looking round cautiously—"there's my dear Mrs. Dale, the best woman in the world—an angel I would say, if the word was not profane; BUT—"

"But I too might say that 'we have not much in common,' if I were only to compare mind to mind, and, when my poor Carry says something less profound than Madame de Staël might have said, smile on her in contempt from the elevation of logic and Latin. Yet, when I remember all the little sorrows and joys that we have shared together, and feel how solitary I should have been without her—oh, then I am instantly aware that there is between us in common something infinitely closer and better than if the same course of study had given us the same equality of ideas; and I was forced to brace myself for a combat of intellect, as I am when I fall in with a tiresome[Pg 259] sage like yourself. I don't pretend to say that Mrs. Riccabocca is a Mrs. Dale," added the Parson, with lofty candor—"there is but one Mrs. Dale in the world; but still, you have drawn a prize in the wheel matrimonial! Think of Socrates, and yet he was content even with his—Xantippe!"

Dr. Riccabocca called to mind Mrs. Dale's "little tempers," and inly rejoiced that no second Mrs. Dale had existed to fall to his own lot. His placid Jemima gained by the contrast. Nevertheless, he had the ill grace to reply, "Socrates was a man beyond all imitation!—Yet I believe that even he spent very few of his evenings at home. But, revenons à nos moutons, we are nearly at Mrs. Fairfield's cottage, and you have not yet told me what you have settled as to Leonard."

The Parson halted, took Riccabocca by the button, and informed him, in very few words, that Leonard was to go to Lansmere to see some relations there, who had the fortune, if they had the will, to give full career to his abilities.

"The great thing, in the meanwhile," said the Parson, "would be to enlighten him a little as to what he calls—enlightenment."

"Ah!" said Riccabocca, diverted, and rubbing his hands, "I shall listen with interest to what you say on that subject."

"And must aid me; for the first step in this modern march of enlightenment is to leave the poor Parson behind; and if one calls out, 'Hold! and look at the sign-post.' the traveller hurries on the faster, saying to himself, 'Pooh, pooh!—that is only the cry of the Parson!' But my gentleman, when he doubts me, will listen to you—you're a philosopher!"

"If you were not so conceited a set of deluded poor creatures already, I would say 'Yes,'" replied the Parson generously; and, taking hold of Riccabocca's umbrella, he applied the brass handle thereof, by way of a knocker, to the cottage door.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Certainly it is a glorious fever that desire To Know! And there are few sights in the moral world more sublime than that which many a garret might afford, if Asmodeus would bare the roofs to our survey—viz., a brave, patient, earnest human being, toiling his own arduous way, athwart the iron walls of penury, into the magnificent Infinite, which is luminous with starry souls.

So there sits Leonard the Self-taught in the little cottage alone; for though scarcely past the hour in which great folks dine, it is the hour in which small folks go to bed, and Mrs. Fairfield has retired to rest, while Leonard has settled to his books.

He had placed his table under the lattice, and from time to time he looked up and enjoyed the stillness of the moon. Well for him that, in reparation for those hours stolen from night, the hardy physical labor commenced with dawn. Students would not be the sad dyspeptics they are if they worked as many hours in the open air as my scholar-peasant. But even in him you could see that the mind had begun a little to affect the frame. They who task the intellect must pay the penalty with the body. Ill, believe me, would this work-day world get on if all within it were hard-reading, studious animals, playing the deuce with the ganglionic apparatus.

Leonard started as he heard the knock at the door; the Parson's well-known voice reassured him. In some surprise he admitted his visitors.

"We are come to talk to you, Leonard," said Mr. Dale, "but I fear we shall disturb Mrs. Fairfield."

"I have not found French difficult, sir. Once over the grammar, and the language is so clear; it seems the very language for reasoning."

"True. Voltaire said justly, 'Whatever is obscure is not French,'" observed Riccabocca.

"Yes, sir. But I find I make little way there without a master. I fear I must give it up," (and Leonard sighed.)

The two gentlemen exchanged looks and seated themselves. The young peasant remained standing modestly, and in his air and mien there was something that touched the heart while it pleased the eye. He was no longer the timid boy who had sunk from the frown of Mr. Stirn, nor that rude personation of simple physical strength, roused to undisciplined bravery, which had received its downfall on the village-green of Hazeldean. The power of thought was on his brow—somewhat unquiet still, but mild and earnest. The features had attained that refinement which is often attributed to race, but comes, in truth, from elegance of idea, whether caught from our parents or learned from books. In his rich brown hair, thrown carelessly from his temples, and curling almost to the shoulders—in his large blue eye, which was deepened to the hue of the violet by the long dark lash—in that firmness of lip, which comes from the grapple with difficulties, there was considerable beauty, but no longer the beauty of the mere peasant. And yet there was still about the whole countenance that expression of goodness and purity which the painter would give to his ideal of the peasant lover—such as Tasso would have placed in the Aminta, or Fletcher have admitted to the side of the Faithful Shepherdess.

"You must draw a chair here, and sit down between us, Leonard," said the Parson.

"If any one," said Riccabocca, "has a right[Pg 260] to sit, it is the one who is to hear the sermon; and if any one ought to stand, it is the one who is about to preach it."

"Don't be frightened, Leonard," said the Parson, graciously; "it is only a criticism, not a sermon," and he pulled out Leonard's Prize Essay.

CHAPTER XIX.

Parson.—"You take for your motto this aphorism [K]—'Knowledge is Power.'—Bacon."

Riccabocca.—"Bacon make such an aphorism! The last man in the world to have said any thing so pert and so shallow."

Leonard (astonished).—"Do you mean to say, sir, that that aphorism is not in Lord Bacon! Why, I have seen it quoted as his in almost every newspaper, and in almost every speech in favor of popular education."

Riccabocca.—"Then that should be a warning to you never again to fall into the error of the would-be scholar—viz. quote second-hand. Lord Bacon wrote a great book to show in what knowledge is power, how that power should be defined, in what it might be mistaken. And, pray, do you think so sensible a man would ever have taken the trouble to write a great book upon the subject, if he could have packed up all he had to say into the portable dogma, 'Knowledge is power?' Pooh! no such aphorism is to be found in Bacon from the first page of his writings to the last."

Parson (candidly).—"Well, I supposed it was Lord Bacon's, and I am very glad to hear that the aphorism has not the sanction of his authority."

Parson.—"Because it either says a great deal too much, or just—nothing at all."

Parson.—"Well, grant that it is undeniable. Does it prove much in favor of knowledge? Pray, is not ignorance power too?"

Riccabocca.—"And a power that has had much the best end of the quarter-staff."

Parson.—"All evil is power, and does its power make it any thing the better?"

Riccabocca.—"Fanaticism is power—and a power that has often swept away knowledge like a whirlwind. The Mussulman burns the library of a world—and forces the Koran and the sword from the schools of Byzantium to the colleges of Hindostan."

Parson (bearing on with a new column of illustration).—"Hunger is power. The barbarians, starved out of their energy by their own swarming population, swept into Italy and annihilated letters. The Romans, however degraded, had more knowledge, at least, than the Gaul and the Visigoth."

Riccabocca (bringing up the reserve).—"And even in Greece, when Greek met Greek, the Athenians—our masters in all knowledge—were beat by the Spartans, who held learning in contempt."

Parson.—"Wherefore you see, Leonard, that though knowledge be power, it is only one of the powers of the world; that there are others as strong, and often much stronger; and the assertion either means but a barren truism, not worth so frequent a repetition, or it means something that you would find it very difficult to prove."

Leonard.—"One nation may be beaten by another that has more physical strength and more military discipline; which last, permit me to say, sir, is a species of knowledge;—"

Riccabocca.—"Yes; but your knowledge-mongers at present call upon us to discard military discipline, and the qualities that produce it, from the list of the useful arts. And in your own essay, you insist upon knowledge as the great disbander of armies, and the foe of all military discipline."

Parson.—"Let the young man proceed. Nations, you say, may be beaten by other nations less learned and civilized?"

Leonard.—"But knowledge elevates a class. I invite my own humble order to knowledge, because knowledge will lift them into power."

Parson.—"In the first place, is it true that the class which has the most knowledge gets the most power? I suppose philosophers, like my friend Dr. Riccabocca, think they have the most knowledge. And pray, in what age have philosophers governed the world? Are they not always grumbling that nobody attends to them?"

"Per Bacco," said Riccabocca, "if people had attended to us, it would have been a droll sort of world by this time!"

Parson.—"Very likely. But, as a general rule, those have the most knowledge who give themselves up to it the most. Let us put out of the question philosophers (who are often but ingenious lunatics), and speak only of erudite scholars, men of letters and practical science, professors, tutors, and fellows of colleges. I fancy any member of Parliament would tell us that there is no class of men which has less actual influence on public affairs. They have more knowledge than manufacturers and ship-owners, squires and farmers; but, do you find that they have more power over the Government and the votes of the House of Commons!"

"Ought they?" said the Parson: "we'll[Pg 261] consider that later. Meanwhile, you must not escape from your own proposition, which is that knowledge is power—not that it ought to be. Now, even granting your corollary, that the power of a class is therefore proportioned to its knowledge—pray, do you suppose that while your order, the operatives, are instructing themselves, all the rest of the community are to be at a stand-still? Diffuse knowledge as you may, you will never produce equality of knowledge. Those who have most leisure, application, and aptitude for learning, will still know the most. Nay, by a very natural law, the more general the appetite for knowledge, the more the increased competition would favor those most adapted to excel by circumstances and nature. At this day, there is a vast increase of knowledge spread over all society, compared with that in the Middle Ages; but is there not a still greater distinction between the highly-educated gentleman and the intelligent mechanic, than there was then between the baron who could not sign his name and the churl at the plough? between the accomplished statesman, versed in all historical law, and the voter whose politics are formed by his newspaper, than there was between the legislator who passed laws against witches, and the burgher who defended his guild from some feudal aggression? between the enlightened scholar and the dunce of to-day, than there was between the monkish alchemist and the blockhead of yesterday? Peasant, voter, and dunce of this century are no doubt wiser than the churl, burgher, and blockhead of the twelfth. But the gentleman, statesman, and scholar of the present age are at least quite as favorable a contrast to the alchemist, witch-burner, and baron of old. As the progress of enlightenment has done hitherto, so will it ever do. Knowledge is like capital: the more there is in a country, the greater the disparities in wealth between one man and another. Therefore, if the working class increase in knowledge, so do the other classes; and if the working class rise peacefully and legitimately into power, it is not in proportion to their own knowledge alone, but rather according as it seems to the knowledge of the other orders of the community, that such augmentation of proportional power is just, and safe, and wise."

Placed between the Parson and the Philosopher, Leonard felt that his position was not favorable to the display of his forces. Insensibly he edged his chair somewhat away, and said mournfully:

"Then, according to you, the reign of knowledge would be no great advance in the aggregate freedom and welfare of man?"

Parson.—"Let us define. By knowledge, do you mean intellectual cultivation?—by the reign of knowledge, the ascendency of the most cultivated minds?"

Riccabocca.—"Oh indiscreet young man, that is an unfortunate concession of yours; for the ascendency of the most cultivated minds would be a terrible obligarchy!"

Parson.—"Perfectly true; and we now reply to your exclamation, that men who, by profession, have most learning ought to have more influence than squires and merchants, farmers and mechanics. Observe, all the knowledge that we mortals can acquire is not knowledge positive and perfect, but knowledge comparative, and subject to all the errors and passions of humanity. And suppose that you could establish, as the sole regulators of affairs, those who had the most mental cultivation, do you think they would not like that power well enough to take all means their superior intelligence could devise to keep it to themselves? The experiment was tried of old by the priests of Egypt; and in the empire of China, at this day, the aristocracy are elected from those who have most distinguished themselves in learned colleges. If I may call myself a member of that body, 'the people,' I would rather be an Englishman, however much displeased with dull Ministers and blundering Parliaments, than I would be a Chinese under the rule of the picked sages of the Celestial Empire. Happily, therefore, my dear Leonard, nations are governed by many things besides what is commonly called knowledge; and the greatest practical ministers, who, like Themistocles, have made small states great—and the most dominant races who, like the Romans, have stretched their rule from a village half over the universe—have been distinguished by various qualities which a philosopher would sneer at, and a knowledge-monger would call 'sad prejudices,' and 'lamentable errors of reason.'"

Leonard (bitterly).—"Sir, you make use of knowledge itself to argue against knowledge."

Parson.—"I make use of the little I know to prove the foolishness of idolatry. I do not argue against knowledge; I argue against knowledge-worship. For here, I see in your Essay, that you are not contented with raising human knowledge into something like divine omnipotence, you must also confound her with virtue. According to you, we have only to diffuse the intelligence of the few among the many, and all at which we preachers aim is accomplished. Nay more; for whereas we humble preachers have never presumed to say, with the heathen Stoic, that even virtue is sure of happiness below (though it be the best road to it), you tell us plainly that this knowledge of yours gives not only the virtue of a saint, but bestows the bliss of a God. Before the steps of your idol the evils of life disappear. To hear you, one has but 'to know,' in order to be exempt from the sins and sorrows of the ignorant. Has it ever been so? Grant that you diffuse amongst the many all the knowledge ever attained by the few. Have the wise few been so unerring and so happy? You supposed that your motto was accurately cited from Bacon. What was Bacon himself? The poet tells you:[Pg 262]

Can you hope to bestow upon the vast mass of your order the luminous intelligence of this 'Lord Chancellor of nature?' Grant that you do so—and what guarantee have you for the virtue and the happiness which you assume as the concomitants of the gift? See Bacon himself; what black ingratitude! what miserable self-seeking! what truckling servility! what abject and pitiful spirit! So far from intellectual knowledge, in its highest form and type, insuring virtue and bliss, it is by no means uncommon to find great mental cultivation combined with great moral corruption." (Aside to Riccabocca)—"Push on, will you?"

Riccabocca.—"A combination remarkable in eras as in individuals. Petronius shows us a state of morals at which a commonplace devil would blush, in the midst of a society more intellectually cultivated than certainly was that which produced Regulus or the Horatii. And the most learned eras in modern Italy were precisely those which brought the vices into the most ghastly refinement."

Leonard (rising in great agitation, and clasping his hands).—"I cannot contend with you, who produce against information so slender and crude as mine the stores which have been locked from my reach. But I feel that there must be another side to this shield—a shield that you will not even allow to be silver. And, oh, if you thus speak of knowledge, why have you encouraged me to know?"

CHAPTER XX.

"Ah! my son!" said the Parson, "if I wished to prove the value of Religion, would you think I served it much, if I took as my motto, 'Religion is power?' Would not that be a base and sordid view of its advantages? And would you not say he who regards religion as a power, intends to abuse it as a priestcraft?"

Parson.—"If the cause be holy, do not weigh it in the scales of the market; if its objects be peaceful, do not seek to arm it with the weapons of strife; if it is to be the cement of society, do not vaunt it as the triumph of class against class."

Leonard (ingenuously).—"You correct me nobly, sir. Knowledge is power, but not in the sense in which I have interpreted the saying."

Parson.—"Knowledge is one of the powers in the moral world, but one that, in its immediate result, is not always of the most worldly advantage to the possessor. It is one of the slowest, because one of the most durable, of agencies. It may take a thousand years for a thought to come into power; and the thinker who originated it might have died in rags or in chains."

Riccabocca.—"Our Italian proverb saith that 'the teacher is like the candle, which lights others in consuming itself.'"

Parson.—"Therefore he who has the true ambition of knowledge should entertain it for the power of his idea, not for the power it may bestow on himself; it should be lodged in the conscience, and, like the conscience, look for no certain reward on this side the grave. And since knowledge is compatible with good and with evil, would not it be better to say, 'Knowledge is a trust?'"

Parson.—"You ask me why we encourage you to know. First, because (as you say yourself in your Essay), knowledge, irrespective of gain, is in itself a delight, and ought to be something far more. Like liberty, like religion, it may be abused; but I have no more right to say that the poor shall be ignorant, than I have to say that the rich only shall be free, and that the clergy alone shall learn the truths of redemption. You truly observe in your treatise that knowledge opens to us other excitements than those of the senses, and another life than that of the moment. The difference between us is this, that you forget that the same refinement which brings us new pleasures exposes us to new pains—the horny hand of the peasant feels not the nettles which sting the fine skin of the scholar. You forget also, that whatever widens the sphere of the desires, opens to them also new temptations. Vanity, the desire of applause, pride, the sense of superiority—gnawing discontent where that superiority is not recognized—morbid susceptibility, which comes with all new feelings—the underrating of simple pleasures apart from the intellectual—the chase of the imagination, often unduly stimulated, for things unattainable below—all these are surely amongst the first temptations that beset the entrance into knowledge."

"Hence," continued the Parson, benignantly—"hence, so far from considering that we do all that is needful to accomplish ourselves as men, when we cultivate only the intellect, we should remember that we thereby continually increase the range of our desires, and therefore of our temptations; and we should endeavor, simultaneously, to cultivate both those affections of the heart which prove the ignorant to be God's children no less than the wise, and those moral qualities which have made men great and good when reading and writing were scarcely known: to wit, patience and fortitude under poverty and distress; humility and beneficence amidst grandeur and wealth; and, in counteraction to that egotism which all superiority, mental or worldly, is apt to inspire, Justice, the father of all the more solid virtues, softened by Charity, which is their loving mother. Thus accompanied, knowledge indeed becomes the magnificent crown of humanity—not the imperious despot, but the checked and tempered sovereign of the soul."

The Parson paused, and Leonard, coming near him, timidly took his hand, with a child's affectionate and grateful impulse.[Pg 263]

Riccabacca.—"And if, Leonard, you are not satisfied with our Parson's excellent definitions, you have only to read what Lord Bacon himself has said upon the true ends of knowledge, to comprehend at once how angry the poor great man, whom Mr. Dale treats so harshly, would have been with those who have stinted his elaborate distinctions and provident cautions into that coxcombical little aphorism, and then misconstrued all he designed to prove in favor of the commandant, and authority of learning. For," added the sage, looking up as a man does when he is taxing his memory, "I think it is thus that after saying the greatest error of all is the mistaking or misplacing the end of knowledge, and denouncing the various objects for which it is vulgarly sought;—I think it is thus that he proceeds.... 'Knowledge is not a shop for profit or sale, but a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of men's estate.'"[L]

Parson (remorsefully)—"Are those Lord Bacon's words? I am very sorry I spoke so uncharitably of his life. I must examine it again. I may find excuses for it now that I could not when I first formed my judgment. I was then a raw lad at Oxford. But I see, Leonard, there is still something on your mind."

Leonard.—"It is true, sir. I would but ask whether it is not by knowledge that we arrive at the qualities and virtues you so well describe, but which you seem to consider as coming to us through channels apart from knowledge?"

Parson.—"If you mean by the word knowledge something very different from what you express in your essay, and which those contending for mental instruction, irrespective of religion and ethics, appear also to convey by the word —— you are right; but, remember, we have already agreed that by the word knowledge we mean culture purely intellectual."

Parson.—"Thus, when this great Lord Bacon erred, you may say that he erred from want of knowledge—the knowledge that moralists and preachers would convey. But Lord Bacon had read all that moralists and preachers could say on such matters; and he certainly did not err from want of intellectual cultivation. Let me here, my child, invite you to observe, that He who knew most of our human hearts and our immortal destinies, did not insist on this intellectual culture as essential to the virtues that form our well-being here, and conduce to our salvation hereafter. Had it been essential, the Allwise One would not have selected humble fishermen for the teachers of his doctrine, instead of culling his disciples from Roman portico or Athenian academy. And this, which distinguishes so remarkably the Gospel from the ethics of heathen philosophy, wherein knowledge is declared to be necessary to virtue, is a proof how slight was the heathen sage's insight into the nature of mankind, when compared with the Saviour's; for hard indeed would it be to men, whether high or low, rich or poor, if science and learning, or contemplative philosophy, were the sole avenues to peace and redemption; since, in this state of ordeal, requiring active duties, very few in any age, whether they be high or low, rich or poor, ever are or can be devoted to pursuits merely mental. Christ does not represent heaven as a college for the learned. Therefore the rules of the Celestial Legislator are rendered clear to the simplest understanding as to the deepest."

Riccabocca.—"And that which Plato and Zeno, Pythagoras and Socrates, could not do, was done by men whose ignorance would have been a by-word in the schools of the Greek. The gods of the vulgar were dethroned; the face of the world was changed! This thought may make us allow, indeed, that there are agencies more powerful than mere knowledge, and ask, after all, what is the mission which knowledge should achieve?"

Parson.—"The Sacred Book tells us even that; for after establishing the truth that, for the multitude, knowledge is not essential to happiness and good, it accords still to knowledge its sublime part in the revelation prepared and announced. When an instrument of more than ordinary intelligence was required for a purpose divine—when the Gospel, recorded by the simple, was to be explained by the acute, enforced by the energetic, carried home to the doubts of the Gentile—the Supreme Will joined to the zeal of the earlier apostles the learning and genius of St. Paul—not holier than the others—calling himself the least, yet laboring more abundantly than them all—making himself all things unto all men, so that some might be saved. The ignorant may be saved no less surely than the wise; but here comes the wise man who helps to save! And how the fulness and animation of this grand Presence, of this indomitable Energy, seem to vivify the toil, and to speed the work! 'In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils amongst false brethren.' Behold, my son! does not[Pg 264] Heaven here seem to reveal the true type of knowledge—a sleepless activity, a pervading agency, a dauntless heroism, an all-supporting faith? A power—a power indeed—a power apart from the aggrandizement of self—a power that brings to him who owns and transmits it but 'weariness and painfulness; in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness'—but a power distinct from the mere circumstance of the man, rushing from him as rays from a sun—borne through the air, and clothing it with light—piercing under earth, and calling forth the harvest! Worship not knowledge—worship not the sun, O my child! Let the sun but proclaim the Creator; let the knowledge but illumine the worship!"

The good man, overcome by his own earnestness, paused; his head drooped on the young student's breast, and all three were long silent.

CHAPTER XXI.

Whatever ridicule may be thrown upon Mr. Dale's dissertations by the wit of the enlightened, they had a considerable, and I think a beneficial, effect upon Leonard Fairfield—an effect which may perhaps create less surprise, when the reader remembers that Leonard was unaccustomed to argument, and still retained many of the prejudices natural to his rustic breeding. Nay, he actually thought it possible that, as both Riccabocca and Mr. Dale were more than double his age, and had had opportunities not only of reading twice as many books, but of contracting experience in wider ranges of life—he actually, I say, thought it possible that they might be better acquainted with the properties and distinctions of knowledge than himself. At all events, the Parson's words were so far well-timed, that they produced in Leonard very much of that state of mind which Mr. Dale desired to effect, before communicating to him the startling intelligence that he was to visit relations whom he had never seen, of whom he had heard but little, and that it was at least possible that the result of that visit might be to open to him greater facilities for instruction, and a higher degree in life.

Without some such preparation, I fear that Leonard would have gone forth into the world with an exaggerated notion of his own acquirements, and with a notion yet more exaggerated as to the kind of power that such knowledge as he possessed would obtain for itself. As it was, when Mr. Dale broke to him the news of the experimental journey before him, cautioning him against being over sanguine, Leonard received the intelligence with a serious meekness, and thoughts that were nobly solemn.

When the door closed on his visitors, he remained for some moments motionless, and in deep meditation; then he unclosed the door, and stole forth. The night was already far advanced, the heavens were luminous with all the host of stars. "I think," said the student, referring, in later life, to that crisis in his destiny—"I think it was then, as I stood alone, yet surrounded by worlds so numberless, that I first felt the distinction between mind and soul."

"Tell me," said Riccabocca, as he parted company with Mr. Dale, "whether you think we should have given to Frank Hazeldean, on entering life, the same lecture on the limits and ends of knowledge which we have bestowed on Leonard Fairfield."

"My friend," quoth the Parson, with a touch of human conceit, "I have ridden on horseback, and I know that some horses should be guided by the bridle, and some should be urged by the spur."

"Cospetto!" said Riccabocca; "you contrive to put every experience of yours to some use—even your journey on Mr. Hazeldean's pad. And I see now why, in this little world of a village, you have picked up so general an acquaintance with life."

"Do so, and you will find that you need not go far to learn the habits of birds, and know the difference between a swallow and a swift. Learn the difference in a village, and you know the difference wherever swallows and swifts skim the air."

"Are with us all the year round—which is more than we can say of swallows and swifts."

"Mr. Dale," said Riccabocca, taking off his hat with great formality, "if ever again I find myself in a dilemma, I will come to you instead of to Machiavelli."

"Ah!" cried the Parson, "if I could but have a calm hour's talk with you on the errors of the Papal relig—"

CHAPTER XXII.

The next day, Mr. Dale had a long conversation with Mrs. Fairfield. At first, he found some difficulty in getting over her pride, and inducing her to accept overtures from parents who had so long slighted both Leonard and herself. And it would have been in vain to have put before the good woman the worldly advantages which such overtures implied. But when Mr. Dale said, almost sternly, "Your parents are old, your father infirm; their least wish should be as binding to you as their command," the Widow bowed her head, and said,—

"God bless them, sir, I was very sinful—'Honor your father and mother.' I'm no scollard, but I know the Commandments. Let Lenny go. But he'll soon forget me, and mayhap he'll learn to be ashamed of me."

"There I will trust him," said the Parson; and he contrived easily to reassure and soothe her.

It was not till all this was settled that Mr.[Pg 265] Dale drew forth an unsealed letter, which Mr. Richard Avenel, taking his hint, had given to him, as from Leonard's grandparents, and said,—"This is for you, and it contains an inclosure of some value."

When Leonard returned home that evening, Mrs. Fairfield showed him the letter. It ran thus:

"Dear Jane,—Mr. Dale will tell you that we wish Leonard to come to us. We are glad to hear you are well. We forward, by Mr. Dale, a bank-note for £50, which comes from Richard, your brother. So no more at present from your affectionate parents,

"John and Margaret Avenel."

The letter was in a stiff female scrawl, and Leonard observed that two or three mistakes in spelling had been corrected, either in another pen or in a different hand.

"Dear brother Dick, how good in him!" cried the widow. "When I saw there was money, I thought it must be him. How I should like to see Dick again. But I s'pose he's still in Amerikay. Well, well, this will buy clothes for you."

"I'm not quite so silly as that," cried Mrs. Fairfield, with contempt; and she put the fifty pounds into a cracked teapot.

"Dear me, dear me, that's true. What shall I do with it?—what do I want with it, too! Dear me! I wish they hadn't sent it. I shan't sleep in peace. You must e'en put it in your own pouch, and button it up tight, boy."

Lenny smiled, and took the note; but he took it to Mr. Dale, and begged him to put it into the Savings' Bank for his mother.

The day following he went to take leave of his master, of Jackeymo, of the fountain, the garden. But, after he had gone through the first of these adieus with Jackeymo,—who, poor man, indulged in all the lively gesticulations of grief which make half the eloquence of his countrymen; and then, absolutely blubbering, hurried away—Leonard himself was so affected that he could not proceed at once to the house, but stood beside the fountain, trying hard to keep back his tears.

"You, Leonard—and you are going!" said a soft voice; and the tears fell faster than ever, for he recognized the voice of Violante.

"Do not cry," continued the child, with a kind of tender gravity. "You are going, but papa says it would be selfish in us to grieve, for it is for your good; and we should be glad. But I am selfish, Leonard, and I do grieve. I shall miss you sadly."

"Yes. But I do not cry, Leonard, for I envy you, and I wish I were a boy: I wish I could do as you."

The girl clasped her hands, and reared her slight form, with a kind of passionate dignity.

"But to serve those you love. One day you will come back to your mother's cottage, and say, 'We have conquered fortune.' Oh that I could go forth and return, as you will. But my father has no country, and his only child is a useless girl."

As Violante spoke, Leonard had dried his tears; her emotion distracted him from his own.

"Oh," continued Violante, again raising her head loftily, "what it is to be a man! A woman sighs, 'I wish,' but man should say, 'I will.'"

Occasionally before, Leonard had noted fitful flashes of a nature grand and heroic, in the Italian child, especially of late—flashes the more remarkable from their contrast to a form most exquisitely feminine, and to a sweetness of temper which made even her pride gentle. But now it seemed as if the child spoke with the command of a queen—almost with the inspiration of a muse. A strange and new sense of courage entered within him.

The girl turned and surveyed him with eyes brighter for their moisture. She then extended her hand to him, with a quick movement, and, as he bent over it, with a grace taught to him by genuine emotion, she said,—"And if you do, then, girl and child as I am, I shall think I have aided a brave heart in the great strife for honor!"

She lingered a moment, smiled as if to herself, and then, gliding away, was lost amongst the trees.

After a long pause, in which Leonard recovered slowly from the surprise and agitation into which Violante had thrown his spirits—previously excited as they were—he went, murmuring to himself, towards the house. But Riccabocca was from home. Leonard turned mechanically to the terrace, and busied himself with the flowers. But the dark eyes of Violante shone on his thoughts, and her voice rang in his ear.

At length Riccabocca appeared, followed up the road by a laborer, who carried something indistinct under his arm.

The Italian beckoned to Leonard to follow him into the parlor; and after conversing with him kindly, and at some length, and packing up, as it were, a considerable provision of wisdom in the portable shape of aphorisms and proverbs, the sage left him alone for a few moments. Riccabocca then returned with his wife, and bearing a small knapsack:—

"It is not much we can do for you, Leonard, and money is the worst gift in the world for a keepsake; but my wife and I have put our heads together to furnish you with a little outfit.[Pg 266] Giacomo, who was in our secret, assures us that the clothes will fit: and stole, I fancy, a coat of yours for the purpose. Put them on when you go to your relations: it is astonishing what a difference it makes in the ideas people form of us, according as our coats are cut one way or another. I should not be presentable in London thus; and nothing is more true than that a tailor is often the making of a man."

"The shirts, too, are very good holland," said Mrs. Riccabocca, about to open the knapsack.

"Never mind details, my dear," cried the wise man; "shirts are comprehended in the general principle of clothes. And, Leonard, as a remembrance somewhat more personal, accept this, which I have worn many a year when time was a thing of importance to me, and nobler fates than mine hung on a moment. We missed the moment, or abused it, and here I am, a waif on a foreign shore. Methinks I have done with Time."

The exile, as he thus spoke, placed in Leonard's reluctant hands a watch that would have delighted an antiquary, and shocked a dandy. It was exceedingly thick, having an outer case of enamel, and an inner one of gold. The hands and the figures of the hours had originally been formed of brilliants; but the brilliants had long since vanished. Still, even thus bereft, the watch was much more in character with the giver than the receiver, and was as little suited to Leonard as would have been the red silk umbrella.

"It is old-fashioned," said Mrs. Riccabocca, "but it goes better than any clock in the country. I really think it will last to the end of the world."

"Carissima mia!" cried the Doctor, "I thought I had convinced you that the world is by no means come to its last legs."

"And that is all we do mean when we talk about that of which we can know nothing," said the Doctor, less gallantly than usual, for he resented that epithet of "old-fashioned," as applied to the watch.

Leonard, we see, had been silent all this time; he could not speak—literally and truly, he could not speak. How he got out of his embarrassment, and how he got out of the room, he never explained to my satisfaction. But, a few minutes afterwards, he was seen hurrying down the road very briskly.

"There is a depth in that boy's heart," said the sage, "which might float an Argosy."

"Poor dear boy! I think we have put every thing into the knapsack that he can possibly want," said good Mrs. Riccabocca musingly.

The Doctor (continuing his soliloquy).—"They are strong, but they are not immediately apparent."

The Doctor (startled).—"Care at the wash! What on earth are you talking of, ma'am?"

The Doctor (with a heavy sigh).—"The feelings, ma'am!" Then, after a pause, taking his wife's hand affectionately—"But you did quite right to think of the shirts; Mr. Dale said very truly—"

The Doctor.—"That there was a great deal in common between us—even when I think of feelings, and you but of—shirts."

CHAPTER XXIII.

Mr. and Mrs. Avenel sat within the parlor—Mr. Richard stood on the hearth-rug, whistling Yankee Doodle. "The Parson writes word that the lad will come to-day," said Richard suddenly—"let me see the letter—ay, to-day. If he took the coach as far as ——, he might walk the rest of the way in two or three hours. He should be pretty nearly here. I have a great mind to go and meet him: it will save his asking questions, and hearing about me. I can clear the town by the back-way, and get out at the high road."

"Well, that is a good one! Not know an Avenel! We've all the same cut of the jib—have not we, father?"

"We were always a well-favored family," said John, recomposing himself. "There was Luke, but he's gone; and Harry, but he's dead too; and Dick, but he's in Amerikay—no, he's here; and my darling Nora, but—"

The old man stared at her, and then put his tremulous hand to his brow. "And Nora's gone too!" said he, in a voice of profound woe. Both hands then fell on his knees, and his head drooped on his breast.

Mrs. Avenel rose, kissed her husband on the forehead, and then walked away to the window. Richard took up his hat, and brushed the nap carefully with his handkerchief; but his lips quivered.

"I'm going," said he, abruptly. "Now mind, mother, not a word about Uncle Richard yet; we must first see how we like each other, and (in a whisper) you'll try and get that into my poor father's head?"

"Ay, Richard," said Mrs. Avenel, quietly. Richard put on his hat, and went out by the back way. He stole along the fields that skirted the town, and had only once to cross the street before he got into the high road.

He walked on until he came to the first milestone. There he seated himself, lighted his[Pg 267] cigar, and awaited his nephew. It was now nearly the hour of sunset, and the road before him lay westward. Richard from time to time looked along the road, shading his eyes with his hand; and at length, just as the disc of the sun had half sunk down the horizon, a solitary figure came up the way. It emerged suddenly from the turn in the road; the reddening beams colored all the atmosphere around it. Solitary and silent it came as from a Land of Light.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Leonard made a sign in the affirmative, and walked on a few paces; then seeing the stranger who had accosted him still by his side, he said—

"If you know the town, sir, perhaps you will have the goodness to tell me whereabouts Mr. Avenel lives?"

"I can put you into a straight cut across the fields, that will bring you just behind the house."

"No, it is in my way. So you are going to Mr. Avenel's?—a good old gentleman."

"A particular superior woman," said Richard. "Any one else to ask after—I know the family well."

"If you can tell me any thing about him," said Leonard, "I should be very glad."

"A sad wild dog—his parents were so glad when he cut and run—went off to the States. They say he made money; but, if so, he neglected his relations shamefully."

"Sir," said Leonard, "you are wholly misinformed. He has been most generous to a relative who had little claim on him; and I never heard his name mentioned but with love and praise."

Richard instantly fell to whistling Yankee Doodle, and walked on several paces without saying a word. He then made a slight apology for his impertinence—hoped no offence—and with his usual bold but astute style of talk, contrived to bring out something of his companion's mind. He was evidently struck with the clearness and propriety with which Leonard expressed himself, raised his eyebrows in surprise more than once, and looked him full in the face with an attentive and pleased survey. Leonard had put on the new clothes with which Riccabocca and wife had provided him. They were those appropriate to a young country tradesman in good circumstances; but as he did not think about the clothes, so he had unconsciously something of the ease of the gentleman.

They now came into the fields. Leonard paused before a slip of ground sown with rye.

"I should have thought grass land would have answered better, so near a town," said he.

"No doubt it would," answered Richard; "but they are sadly behind-hand in these parts. You see that great park yonder, on the other side of the road? That would answer better for rye than grass; but then what would become of my Lord's deer? The aristocracy eat us up, young man."

"But the aristocracy did not sow this piece with rye, I suppose?" said Leonard, smiling.

"Let every man look to his own ground," said Leonard, with a cleverness of repartee caught from Doctor Riccabocca.

"'Cute lad you are," said Richard; "and we'll talk more of these matters another time."

"You can get through the gap in the hedge, by the old pollard oak," said Richard; "and come round by the front of the house. Why, you're not afraid—are you?"

"Go; and—wait a bit,—harkye, young man, Mrs. Avenel is a cold-mannered woman; but don't be abashed by that."

Leonard thanked the good-natured stranger, crossed the field, passed the gap, and paused a moment under the stinted shade of the old hollow-hearted oak. The ravens were returning to their nests. At the sight of a human form under the tree, they wheeled round, and watched him afar. From the thick of the boughs, the young ravens sent their hoarse low cry.

CHAPTER XXV.

But John, who had risen with knocking knees, gazed hard at Leonard, and then fell on his breast, sobbing aloud—"Nora's eyes!—he has a blink in his eyes like Nora's."[Pg 268]

"He is a poor creature," she whispered to Leonard—"you excite him. Come away, I will show you your room."

Leonard followed her up the stairs, and came into a room—neatly, and even prettily furnished. The carpet and curtains were faded by the sun, and of old-fashioned pattern, but there was a look about the room as if it had long been disused.

Leonard drew his arm round her waist affectionately: "I fear that I have put you out sadly—my dear grandmother."

Mrs. Avenel glided hastily from his arm, and her countenance worked much—every nerve in it twitching as it were; then, placing her hand on his locks, she said with passion, "God bless you, my grandson," and left the room.

Leonard dropped his knapsack on the floor, and looked around him wistfully. The room seemed as if it had once been occupied by a female. There was a work-box on the chest of drawers, and over it hanging shelves for books, suspended by ribbons that had once been blue, with silk and fringe appended to each shelf, and knots and tassels here and there—the taste of a woman, or rather of a girl, who seeks to give a grace to the commonest things around her. With the mechanical habit of a student, Leonard took down one or two of the volumes still left on the shelves. He found Spenser's Fairy Queen, Racine in French, Tasso in Italian; and on the fly-leaf of each volume, in the exquisite handwriting familiar to his memory, the name "Leonora." He kissed the books, and replaced them with a feeling akin both to tenderness and awe.

He had not been alone in his room more than a quarter of an hour, before the maid-servant knocked at his door and summoned him to tea.

Poor John had recovered his spirits, and his wife sate by his side holding his hand in hers. Poor John was even gay. He asked many questions about his daughter Jane, and did not wait for the answers. Then he spoke about the Squire, whom he confounded with Audley Egerton, and talked of elections and the Blue party, and hoped Leonard would always be a good Blue; and then he fell to his tea and toast, and said no more.

Mrs. Avenel spoke little, but she eyed Leonard askant, as it were, from time to time; and after each glance the nerves of the poor severe face twitched again.

A little after nine o'clock, Mrs. Avenel lighted a candle, and placing it in Leonard's hand, "You must be tired—you know your own room now. Good night."

Leonard took the light, and, as was his wont with his mother, kissed Mrs. Avenel on the cheek. Then he took John's hand and kissed him too. The old man was half asleep, and murmured dreamily, "That's Nora."

Leonard had retired to his room about half an hour, when Richard Avenel entered the house softly, and joined his parents.

"And like him. Do you know he has a great look of poor Nora?—more like her than Jane."

"Yes; he is handsomer than Jane ever was, but more like your father than any one. John was so comely. You take to the boy, then?"

"Ay, that I do. Just tell him in the morning that he is to go with a gentleman who will be his friend, and don't say more. The chaise shall be at the door after breakfast. Let him get into it: I shall wait for him out of the town. What's the room you give him?"

"The room in which Nora slept? Oh, no! I could not have slept a wink there. What a charm there was in that girl!—how we all loved her! But she was too beautiful and good for us—too good to live!"

"None of us are too good," said Mrs. Avenel with great austerity, "and I beg you will not talk in that way. Good night—I must get your poor father to bed."

When Leonard opened his eyes the next morning, they rested on the face of Mrs. Avenel, which was bending over his pillow. But it was long before he could recognize that countenance, so changed was its expression—so tender, so motherlike. Nay, the face of his own mother had never seemed to him so soft with a mother's passion.

"Ah!" he murmured, half rising and flinging his young arms round her neck. Mrs. Avenel, this time, and for the first, taken by surprise, warmly returned the embrace; she clasped him to her breast, she kissed him again and again. At length with a quick start she escaped, and walked up and down the room, pressing her hands tightly together. When she halted, her face had recovered its usual severity and cold precision.

"It is time for you to rise, Leonard," said she. "You will leave us to-day. A gentleman has promised to take charge of you, and do for you more than we can. A chaise will be at the door soon—make haste."

John was absent from the breakfast-table. His wife said that he never rose till late, and must not be disturbed.

"I do bless you," said Mrs. Avenel firmly. "Be honest and good, and beware of the first[Pg 269] false step." She pressed his hand with a convulsive grasp, and led him to the outer door.

The postboy clanked his whip, the chaise rattled off. Leonard put his head out of the window to catch a last glimpse of the old woman. But the boughs of the pollard oak, and its gnarled decaying trunk, hid her from his eye. And look as he would, till the road turned, he saw but the melancholy tree.

FOOTNOTES:

[K] This aphorism has been probably assigned to Lord Bacon upon the mere authority of the index to his works. It is the aphorism of the index-maker, certainly not of the great master of inductive philosophy. Bacon has, it is true, repeatedly dwelt on the power of knowledge, but with so many explanations and distinctions, that nothing could be more unjust to his general meaning than to attempt to cramp into a sentence what it costs him a volume to define. Thus, if in one page he appears to confound knowledge with power, in another he sets them in the strongest antithesis to each other; as follows, "Adeo, signanter Deus opera potentiæ et sapientiæ discriminavit." But it would be as unfair to Bacon to convert into an aphorism the sentence that discriminates between knowledge and power as it is to convert into an aphorism any sentence that confounds them.

[L] "But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge:—for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite: sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession,"—(that is, for most of those objects which are meant by the ordinary citers of the saying, 'Knowledge is power;') "and seldom sincerely to give a true account of these gifts of reason to the benefit and use of men; as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down, with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention; or a shop for profit or sale—and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of men's estate."—Advancememt of Learning, Book I.

From the new novel, "Rose Douglass."

A FAMILY OF OLD MAIDS.

Such a family of old maids! The youngest mistress was forty, and the two servants were somewhat older. They had each their pets too, except I think the eldest, who was the clearest-headed of the family. The servants had the same Christian name, which was rather perplexing, as neither would consent to be called by her surname. How their mistresses managed to distinguish them I do not recollect; but the country people settled it easily amongst themselves by early naming them according to their different heights, "lang Jenny," and "little Jenny." They were characters in their way as well as their mistresses. They had served them for upwards of twenty years, and knew every secret of the family, being as regularly consulted as any of the members of it. They regulated the expenses too, much as they liked, which was in a very frugal, economical manner. The two Jennies had not much relished their removal to the country, and still often sighed with regret for the gossipings they once enjoyed in the Castlegate of Lanark. But they could not bear to part from the family; so they now boomed at their wheels or mended the household linen in the damp dull kitchen of Burnside, instead of performing the same work in their old cosy, comfortable one in the burgh town, and tried to indemnify themselves for their privations by establishing a kind of patronizing familiarity with various of the cottagers' wives.

Miss Jess and Miss Jean were the names of the younger ladies. There was that species of resemblance among all the sisters, both mental and personal, which is often to be observed in members of the same family. Menie, the eldest sister, was, however, much superior to the others in force of character, but her mind had not been cultivated by reading. Jess, the second, was a large coarse-looking woman, with a masculine voice, and tastes decidedly so. An excellent wright or smith she would have made, if unfortunately she had not been born a gentlewoman. She had a habit of wandering about the grounds with a small hammer and nails in her huge pocket, examining the fences, and mending them if necessary. She could pick a lock too, when needed, with great neatness and dispatch. I rather think she could repair one also. I have still in my possession a small box of her making, which, for execution and durability, I will match against the performance of any rival amateur of the opposite sex. In spite, however, of such freaks, and as if to make amends for them, Miss Jess possessed one of the softest and most impressionable hearts which ever fell to the lot of a mature maiden of forty-five. She had suffered from no less than six different attachments during her life (she made me her confidante), and most unfortunately they had never been to the right individual, for they were not returned. But poor Miss Jess cherished no malice; she freely forgave them their insensibility. Indeed, she had not the heart to kill a fly. Every beggar imposed on her, and her sisters were obliged for her own sake to restrain her charities. Her dress, like her pursuits, had always a certain masculine air about it. She wore large rough boots, coarse gloves, and a kind of man's cravat constantly twisted about her neck when out of doors. In short, she was one of those persons one cannot help liking, yet laughing at. Jean, the youngest sister, had been a beauty in her time, and she still laid claim to the distinction resulting from it. It was a pity, considering the susceptibility of her second sister, that her charms had not been shared by her. Jean was coquettish, and affected a somewhat youthful manner and style of dress, which contrasted ill with her time of life. But the rest of the family, in which of course I include the servants, evidently considered her a young thoughtless thing for whom much allowance must be made.

Historical Review of the Month.

THE UNITED STATES.

Since the close of the Executive Session of the Senate and the departure of the members for their homes, Washington has relapsed into the usual quiet of its summer season. Mr. Corwin, Secretary of the Treasury, has been dangerously ill, but is now slowly recovering. The duties of the office were temporarily performed by the Chief Clerk of the Department. Señor Molina, Chargé to the United States from the Central American State of Costa Rica, has presented his credentials to the President. M. Bois le Comte, the French Minister Plenipotentiary, having been superseded by the appointment of M. de Sartiges, has sold his furniture and gone to Havana. A public dinner was given to Mr. Webster at Annapolis, Maryland, on the 24th of March, by the Delegates of the Maryland State Convention. It was attended by a large number of distinguished persons. Mr. Webster then proceeded to Harrisburgh, where he had been invited by the Legislature of Pennsylvania. A grand reception was given him in the Hall of the House of Representatives. Gov. Johnson introduced the distinguished guest in a brief address of welcome, to which Mr. Webster responded in a speech of an hour's length. He spoke of the commanding physical position of Pennsylvania, forming, as it were, the key-stone between the North and the South, the waters of the Atlantic and the Mississippi. Occupying, thus, a middle ground between the two conflicting portions of the Union, he considered her disposed to do her duty to both, regardless of the suggestions of local prejudices. He then pronounced a most glowing and eloquent eulogium on the Constitution,[Pg 270] and concluded by affirming his belief that ages hence the United States will be free and republican, still making constant progress in general confidence, respect, and prosperity. Mr. Webster is at present on his Marshfield estate, recovering from an indisposition consequent on his labors during the past winter.

The State Convention of Ohio has framed a new Constitution, which is to be submitted to the people for acceptance. It provides for the maintenance of religious freedom, equality of political rights, liberty of speech and of the press, and no imprisonment for debt. The members of each branch of the Legislature are chosen biennially. The Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Treasurer, and Attorney General, are to be chosen by the people for a term of two years, and the Judges for a term of five years. The Legislature is to provide a system of Free Education, and Institutions for the Insane, Blind, Deaf and Dumb are to be supported by the State. The Ohio Legislature has passed resolutions in favor of the repeal or modification of the Fugitive Slave Law, principally on account of its denial of a trial by jury to the fugitive.

The Union feeling is entirely in the ascendant throughout the Southern States. A Committee of the Virginia Legislature, to whom the resolutions of the South Carolina Convention were referred, reported a preamble and series of resolutions of the most patriotic character. They declare that while Virginia deeply sympathizes with South Carolina, she cannot join in any action calculated to impair the integrity of the Union. She believes the Constitution sufficient for the remedy of all grievances, and invokes all who live under it to adhere more strictly to it, and to preserve inviolate its safeguards. Virginia also declines to send Delegates to the proposed Southern Congress. In Georgia, a number of Delegates have been elected to a State Convention of the Union party for the nomination of a Candidate for Governor. The State Convention of Missouri has adopted an address and resolutions fully sustaining Mr. Benton in his course in opposition to the Disunionists. In Mississippi, the Union party have taken measures for a thorough organization. Delegates have been chosen to a State Convention for the nomination of a ticket. The Southern party are about forming a similar organization, the old party lines having been almost entirely abandoned. The only counter-movement in the North, is the assembling of a State Convention in Massachusetts, in opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law, without distinction of party. In Tennessee, the friends of the Free School System have called a General State Convention, to be held at Knoxville. The New-Jersey Legislature has enacted a law prohibiting the employment of children under ten years of age in factories, and providing that ten hours shall be considered a legal day's labor in all manufacturing establishments.

The Annual Election in Rhode Island resulted in the choice of Philip Allen, the Democratic Candidate for Governor, by 600 majority. The Legislature stands—Senate, 14 Democrats and 13 Whigs; Assembly, 31 Democrats and 25 Whigs. The Election in Connecticut gave the following returns for the next Legislature: Senate, 13 Whigs and 8 Democrats; Legislature 113 Whigs and 110 Democrats. As the election of Governor falls upon the Legislature, the probability is that the Governor and the United States Senator for the next six years will be chosen from the Whig party. The Legislature of New-York paid a visit to the cities of New-York and Brooklyn, about the end of March. They remained four days, during which time they visited all the charitable institutions on the island, in company with the city authorities. This is the first instance on record of an official visit of the Legislature to the commercial metropolis of the State.

Boston has been the theatre of some disturbing and exciting proceedings, growing out of the anti-slavery feeling of a portion of the community. A fugitive slave named Sims, who had escaped from Savannah, and had been in Boston about a month, was arrested by the Deputy United States Marshal, at the instance of an agent of the owner. On being taken, he drew a knife and inflicted a severe wound on one of the officers in attendance. An abolitionist lawyer, who attempted to interfere, was arrested and sent to the watch-house. Fletcher Webster, Esq., son of the Secretary of State, was also seized and taken to jail, on account of having attempted to prevent a watchman from ringing the bell of King's Chapel, under the supposition that it was a trick of the Abolitionists to collect a mob. The next day, this sect called a meeting on Boston Common, which was largely attended. Rev. Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, and other speakers, addressed the meeting, urging instant and armed resistance to the operation of the law. The Police, on the other hand, took every precaution to prevent a forcible rescue of the prisoner. The Court-House, in which he was confined, was surrounded by chains to keep off the crowd, and guarded by a strong force; several military companies were also kept in readiness. The friends of the fugitive endeavored to make use of the case for the purpose of testing the constitutionality of the law, and a hearing was had before the United States Commissioner, in which the question was argued at length. In order to prevent the delivery of Sims, a complaint was instituted for assault and battery with intent to kill the officer who arrested him. Chief Justice Shaw, of the Supreme Court, however, decided that a writ of habeas corpus could not be granted, and the United States Commissioner having, from the evidence adduced, remanded Sims to the keeping of his claimant, authority was given to take him back to Savannah. As an assault was feared from the abolitionists and colored people in Boston, the brig Acorn was chartered to proceed to Savannah, and Sims taken on board, in custody of the United States Deputy Marshal and several police officers. A large number of persons offered their services in case any attack should be made. A large crowd collected on the wharf as the party embarked, and a clergyman present knelt down and pronounced a prayer for the rescue of the fugitive. No open act of violence was committed, and after laying a day off Nantasket Beach, the schooner proceeded on her way to Savannah.

The Equinoctial storm, this spring, commenced on the 16th of March, and raged for three days with unusual violence. It was severely felt along the Atlantic coast, and did much damage to the shipping. Amin Bey, the Turkish Envoy to the United States, sailed from Boston on the 9th of April, on his return to Constantinople. The election of a United States Senator by the Massachusetts Legislature has twice again been tried, unsuccessfully.[Pg 271] On the last ballot, Mr. Sumner lacked 12 votes of an election. It was then further postponed to the 23d of April. The census of Virginia has been completed, showing an aggregate population of 1,421,081, about 473,000 of whom are slaves. At the last accounts Jenny Lind was in Cincinnati, after having given two very successful concerts in Nashville and two in Louisville. She has also paid a visit to the Mammoth Cave. Several large crevasses have broken out on the Mississippi River, and another overflow of the plantations is threatened.

The latest mails from Texas bring us little news beyond the continuance of Indian depredations on the frontier. Several American outlaws, who had crossed the Rio Grande for the purposes of plunder, were captured by the Mexicans and executed. Major Bartlett, the United States Boundary Commissioner, arrived at San Antonio from El Paso, on the 17th of March, with a train of fifty wagons. He immediately proceeded to New Orleans for the purpose of arranging for the transmission of supplies. Four persons, who were concerned in the murder of Mr. Clark and others, at a small village near El Paso, have been captured, convicted by a jury summoned on the instant, and hung. The Boundary Commissioners have at last agreed on the starting point of the survey, which will secure to the United States a much larger and more valuable tract of territory than was anticipated. The point established is the intersection of the parallel of 32° with the Rio Grande, which is about 18 miles north of El Paso. From this place the line runs due west till it strikes some branch of the Gila, or if no branch is met, to the point nearest the Gila River, whence it runs due north to the river. It is ascertained that the only branch of the Gila which this line can strike is about one hundred and fifty miles west of the gold and copper mines, leaving that rich mineral region within the United States. This boundary lies to the south of the old limits of New Mexico, and takes in a large region that has always belonged to the State of Chihuahua.

We have accounts from Santa Fe to the 17th of February. The winter had been unusually mild, and the prospects of the spring trade were very favorable. The United States Marshal had completed the census of the Territory. The total population is 61,574, of whom only 650 are Americans. Of the Mexicans over 21 years of age, only one in 103 is able to read. The number of square miles in the Territory is 199,027-1/2. The depredations of the Indians are on the increase. The tribes have become bolder than ever, and the amount of stock driven off by them, is enormous. Great preparations are making at Fort Laramie, on the Platte, and all the other stations on the overland route, to accommodate the summer emigration. A substantial bridge has been built over the North Fork of the Platte, 100 miles above Fort Laramie. Here, also, blacksmith's shops have been erected to accommodate those who need repairs to their wagons.

Two mails and about $3,000,000 in gold dust have arrived from California during the past month. The accounts from San Francisco are to the 5th of March. The Joint Convention of the Legislature, which assembled on the 17th of February for the purpose of choosing a United States Senator, adjourned till the first day of January next, after one hundred and forty-four ineffectual ballots. On the last ballot, the Hon. T. Butler King, the Whig candidate, had twenty votes, lacking four of an election; Col. Fremont nine, and Col. Weller eighteen. Another Legislature is to be elected before the next session. The bonds offered by Gen. Vallejo have been accepted, so that nothing but their fulfilment remains to secure the seat of government for the yet unbuilt city.

The weather still continued to be remarkably dry and mild, owing to which cause, the miners were doing less than usual, and business was consequently dull. In many localities, the miners, after waiting in vain for showers enough to enable them to wash out their piles of dirt, set themselves to work at constructing races to lead off the mountain streams. In some places mountains have been tunneled to divert the water into the desired channels. The yield of gold, wherever mining can be diligently carried on, has in nowise diminished, and new placers of remarkable richness are announced as having been discovered on the Yuba, Feather, Scott and Klamath Rivers, and in the neighborhood of Monterey, Los Angeles and San Diego. Veins of gold in quartz are far more abundant and of richer character than was anticipated; several companies have been formed for working them with machinery. Dredging-machines, attached to steamboats, have also been introduced on the Yuba River, the bed of which has been dug up and washed out in some places, with much success. The excitement in relation to the Gold Bluff is over. Several vessels have returned filled with disappointed adventurers. The black sand on the beach contains a large quantity of gold, but in particles so fine as to prevent its being separated by the ordinary process of washing. On Pitt River, the principal affluent of the Upper Sacramento, a hill of pure carbonate of magnesia, 100 feet high, has been discovered. Large masses are easily detached, and thousands of wagons could be loaded with very little labor.

The Indian hostilities have not yet ceased. After the taking of the stronghold on Fresno Creek, Major Burney and Mr. Savage returned to Mariposa for provisions. They raised a force of 150 men, which they divided into two parties, one of which met the Indians on San Joaquin River, when a running fight ensued that lasted all day. The Indians were driven off, after the loss of forty men. The Legislature has passed a law authorizing a loan of $500,000 for the purpose of prosecuting the war, but upon such terms that it is doubtful whether the money can be obtained.

The condition of society in California shows an alarming tendency among the people to take the law into their own hands. The papers ascribe this state of things to the imperfect and corrupt manner in which the officers of the law have discharged their functions. Acts of violence and crime are frequent in all parts of the country, and the mining communities, with few exceptions, administer summary punishment wherever the offender is captured. Sacramento City has been the scene of a case of this kind, where the people, having no confidence in the ordinary process of the law, took the avenging power in their own hands. A gambler named Roe having shot an inoffensive miner, an immense crowd assembled around the guard-house where he was kept, a jury of the citizens was chosen, witnesses summoned, and the case formally investigated. The jury decided that Roe was guilty of the act, and remanded him for trial.[Pg 272] This, however, did not satisfy the crowd, who clamored for instant punishment, and finally succeeded in forcing the doors of the jail and overcoming the officers. The prisoner was hurried forth, amid the shouts and execrations of the multitude, a scaffold was erected, and at nine o'clock the same evening he was hung, with the ceremonies usually observed. An attempt at lynching was made in San Francisco about the same time. Two ruffians, having attempted to rob and murder a merchant of that city, the people assembled on the plaza and demanded an instant trial, with the understanding that if found guilty, the prisoners should be immediately hung. An examination was held, but the jury could not agree, after which the accused were given into the charge of the regular tribunal.

An unfortunate catastrophe occurred in the Bay of San Francisco, on the 4th of March. The steamer Santa Clara, lying at Central Wharf, took fire, which communicated to the steamer Hartford, lying near, and to the rigging of several vessels. The latter boat was considerably damaged before the conflagration could be extinguished; the Santa Clara was entirely destroyed. She was the first steamboat ever built in San Francisco, and was running on the line between that port and Stockton. The loss by the fire was about $90,000.

News from Oregon to the 1st of March state that the Legislature had adjourned, having established the seat of Government at Salem, in Maryland county, the Penitentiary at Portland, in Washington county, and the University at Marysville, in Benton county. The Governor, however, had refused to sign this act. The agricultural prospects, both of California and Oregon, are very flattering. During the past winter a great deal of land has been broken up and planted, and the fields promise abundant harvests.

EUROPE.

The ministerial crisis in England terminated on the 3d of March by the recall of the Russell Cabinet, entire and unchanged. In making this announcement in the House of Commons, Lord John Russell stated that a coalition between himself and the party of Sir James Graham and Lord Aberdeen was impossible, on account of the refusal of the latter to consent to the Papal Aggression Bill. In returning to power, however, the whigs brought up this bill in a modified and milder form. The situation of the ministry was hardly less precarious than before their resignation. They were again defeated in the Commons, on a motion to reform the administration of the woods and forests, 120 voting for the reform, and 119 voting with the ministers against it. The Papal Aggression Bill has been the cause of several exciting debates in the House of Commons, Mr. Drummond, an ultra Protestant member, created quite a disturbance by ridiculing the relics which have lately been displayed in various parts of the Continent. At the latest dates the bill had passed to a second reading by a vote of 438 to 95, the radical members voting in the minority. The fate of the bill is still far from being decided; the ministry are weak, and it is predicted that the Cabinet will not last longer than the session of Parliament. Lord John Russell has brought in a bill reforming the administration of the Court of Chancery, but the new budget, which has been looked for with a great deal of interest, has not yet made its appearance. During the debate on the Papal Aggression Bill, Mr. Berkley Craven demanded legal interference in the case of his step-daughter, the Hon. Miss Talbot, who, being an heiress in her own right to eighty thousand pounds, had been prevailed upon to enter a convent for the purpose of taking the veil. As the ceremony was to be performed before she had attained her majority, this sum would in all probability go to the funds of the Catholic Church. The statement of this case produced a strong sensation throughout England, and added to the violent excitement on the Catholic Question.

The preparations for the World's Fair are going on with great energy, workmen being employed, day and night in finishing the building and arranging the goods. The severest tests have been used to try the strength of the galleries, which sustained an immense weight without the least deflection. In rainy weather the roof leaks in places, a defect which it has been found almost impossible to remedy. Several changes have been made in the exhibition regulations, to which the American delegates in London take exceptions, and they have appointed a Committee to confer with the Commissioners on the subject. A splendid dinner was given to Macready, the actor, on the 1st of March, on the occasion of his retirement from the stage. Sir E. Bulwer Lytton presided, and speeches were made by Charles Dickens, Chevalier Bunsen, Mr. Thackeray, and others. Three hundred Hungarian exiles recently arrived at Liverpool, from Constantinople, on their way to the United States. A large number of them, of Polish origin, preferred remaining in England, to wait a new revolution on the Continent. A terrible accident took place at a coal-pit near Paisley, in Scotland. Sixty-three men and boys were at work when an explosion took place, supposed to have been caused by fire-damp. Of the whole number in the pit but two were rescued alive.

The third anniversary of the Republic was celebrated in France with imposing ceremonies. During the Carnival week, however, the people in various localities chose to hang the President in effigy, and utter socialist cries. For these offences arrests were made in more than fifty towns. These facts, with the suspension of Michelet as Professor of History in the College of France, because his lectures were considered too democratic, denote an unquiet state of things in the Republic. As the term of Louis Napoleon approaches its termination, the position of parties becomes more nervous and uncertain. In the Assembly, the proposition of M. Creton to take into consideration the abolition of the law exiling the Orleans family, brought on the most violent debate of the session. The adherents of the Mountain were strongly in favor of continuing the exile. Negotiations have been carried on for some time past between the Orleanists and the Legitimists, and early in March it was announced that an alliance had been effected, the Orleanists to acknowledge the right of precedence of the Count de Chambord, (Henri V.,) who, in his turn, was to proclaim the young Count of Paris as his successor. The Count de Chambord was at this time dangerously ill, and his recovery was scarcely hoped for. Since then it appears that there is much confusion between the two parties, the duchess of Orleans refusing to set aside the claims of her son, on any consideration whatever.[Pg 273] The party of Louis Napoleon are intriguing to prolong the presidential term, and it is said that in this they will be joined by the Orleanists. No permanent ministry has yet been organized. It is rumored that Odillon Barrot refused to accept the principal place, which was tendered to him, unless Louis Napoleon would agree to leave his office at the end of his term.

A quarrel has broken out in the French Catholic Church. Some time ago the Archbishop of Paris issued a pastoral letter, recommending the clergy to avoid engaging in political agitations, and appearing to the world as party men. The letter was mild but decisive in its tone, and met with general approval. Lately, the Bishop of Chartres has published a sort of counter-blast, in the shape of a pastoral to his own clergy, written in the most severe and denunciatory forms. This letter he ordered to be published in the religious journals of Paris; and the Archbishop has referred the matter to the Provincial Council, which will be called this year.

Germany is still pursuing her ignis-fatuus of Unity, which is no nearer than when she first set out. The Dresden Conference is still in session, and up to the 20th of March had not adopted any plan of a Federal Diet. It is almost impossible to conjecture what will be the basis of the settlement. More than twenty of the smaller states protested against the plans proposed by Austria; and Prussia, assuming the character of protector, refused to allow their further arrangement. The King of Prussia also refuses to accede to an agreement which his delegates had made, allowing Austria to bring her non-German provinces to the confederacy. In this he is sustained by Russia, who would not willingly see the former country restored to virtual independence by the supremacy which this plan would give her. A return to the old Diet is spoken of in some quarters, but perhaps the most likely result will be the concession of the presidency to Austria, on the part of Prussia. A meeting between the ministers of the two countries is contemplated. The entire population of Prussia, by the census taken last year, is 16,331,000. A fire in Berlin has destroyed the building in which the Upper House of Parliament held its meetings.

The old order reigns in Hesse-cassel, Baron Haynau having issued a proclamation to the Hessian army, in which he declares that he is the Constitution, and will crush under foot the "God-abandoned, pernicious gang, which threatens the welfare of the State." Nevertheless, the popular feeling remains unchanged. Lately, the citizens of Cassel were forbidden to shout or make any demonstration, on the return of a regiment which had been marked by the Government for its sympathy with the popular cause. The people preserved silence, but adroitly expressed their feelings by chalking the word "Hurrah!" in large letters on the backs of their coats and walking in front of the regiment. The Government of Switzerland has at last yielded to the demands of Austria and Prussia, and authorized the Cantons to refuse shelter to political refugees. Those already there may be expelled, should the Cantons see fit. After the insurrection in Baden, the refugees who entered the Swiss territory, amounted to about 11,000, but they have so decreased by emigration to England and America, that at present there are but 482 remaining. The Government of Switzerland lately endeavored to procure passage through Piedmont for some Austrian deserters from the army in Lombardy, who wished to sail from Genoa for Montevideo; but the Piedmontese Government refused to allow it.

Italy is fermenting with the elements of revolution. The bandits, who have been committing such depredations in the Roman States, are not robbers, it now appears, but revolutionary bands. Their extermination is almost impossible, on account of the secrecy and adroitness with which the peasants are enrolled into the service of their chief, Il Passatore. They only meet at a general rendezvous, when some important expedition is contemplated, and afterwards return to their own avocations. They receive regular pay from the moment of their enlistment, and as the links of the organization extend over a wide extent of country, the system must require a considerable amount of money. It is conjectured that this band is the preparative of a political revolution, instigated by the agents of Mazzini. In Lombardy the most severe restrictions have been issued by Radetsky. An interdict has been laid upon a hat of particular form, and a republican song in favor of Mazzini. The populace, however, inserted the name of Radetsky in place of the triumvir, and now sing the song with impunity. A plot has been discovered among the aristocratic party of Piedmont, to deliver the country into the hands of the Absolutists. The army of the kingdom is to be put upon a war footing. Washington's birthday was celebrated in Rome, with interesting ceremonies. About one hundred Americans met in the Palazzo Poli, where they partook of a splendid banquet, at which Mr. Cass, the U. S. Chargé, presided.

In Norway the Thirteenth Storthing, or National Assembly, has been opened by King Oscar. In his speech, he spoke of the tranquillity which the Scandinavian Peninsula had enjoyed, while the other nations of Europe had been convulsed with revolutions, and warned the people against delusive theories and ideas which lead only to discontent with existing relations. He also recommended the construction of a railroad from the city of Christiana to Lake Mjösen. Several serious riots have taken place in Stockholm, and Drontheim, in Norway. On February 14th, the students of the University of Upsala, to the number of 500, paraded the streets of Stockholm, and were not dispersed till a collision took place between them and the police. The same scenes were renewed next day, when the students were joined by the people; the streets were cleared by squadrons of cavalry, and the principal rioters arrested.

The dispute between Turkey and Egypt is still far from being settled. Abbas Pacha, however, is not at present in a condition to come to an open rupture with the Sublime Porte, and these differences will probably be quietly settled. The Pacha is also involved in a dispute with the French Consul-General, in relation to the claims of certain French officers, who were dismissed from the Egyptian service before the expiration of their terms. Late advices from Constantinople state that a definite arrangement has been made with regard to the Hungarian refugees. The Emperor of Austria has granted a full amnesty to all except eight, among whom are Kossuth and Bathyany, on condition that they shall make no attempt to return to Hungary. The eight proscribed persons are to[Pg 274] remain at Kutahya until further orders. General Dembinski had reached Constantinople, where he was well received, and would shortly leave for Paris.

BRITISH AMERICA.

An interesting election has just been held in the county of Haldimand, Canada West, to supply a vacancy in the Canadian Parliament, occasioned by the death of David Thompson, Esq. There were four candidates, one of whom was the noted William Lyon Mackenzie, leader of the Rebellion of 1837. The election resulted in the choice of Mackenzie, who, after an exile of twelve years, resumes his seat in the Legislative Assembly. The Government had previously recognized his claim for $1,000, with interest, for services rendered antecedent to the rebellion. The annexation feeling is reviving in some portions of Lower Canada. At a public meeting recently held in the county of Huntingdon, several of the speakers expressed themselves very strongly in favor of annexation to the United States. The Catholic clergy oppose the movement. One of the leading Canadian politicians has drawn up a scheme of Federal Union for the British Provinces, including the Hudson's Bay Company's Territories, modelled on the federal system of the United States. The Canadian Government recently had under consideration the expediency of closing the Welland Canal against American vessels, on account of the refusal of the United States Government to adopt reciprocity measures. This course, which would seriously injure our commercial interests on the Lakes, has not yet been pursued, and the Government will probably abandon the idea.

MEXICO.

The administration of Gen. Arista is still a subject of much interest and some curiosity. According to the representations of his friends, he is about to take a firm stand in the accomplishment of his leading measures; while, on the other hand, he is charged with weakness and subjection to the influence of irresponsible favorites. Our latest accounts from the Mexican capital predict that the Government will soon be in a state of great embarrassment. The American indemnity money was nearly spent, and there was already a deficiency of near $2,000,000 in the Treasury. In consequence of the many robberies recently committed in and around the city of Mexico and on the road to Vera Cruz, the most stringent measures have been adopted for the preservation of order. Congress is still in session, but has made no modification in the Tariff bill, as was anticipated. It is feared that the Tehuantepec Railroad Treaty will be rejected, notwithstanding that Arista is known to be strongly in its favor. The exclusive privilege of a railroad from Vera Cruz to Medellin, has been granted for one hundred years to Don José Maria Estera.

The revolutionary difficulties in the State of Oaxaca, have not yet been settled. A treaty was made not long since, between Muñoz, the Governor of the State, and the rebel, Melendez, which gave great offence to the people. In order to reinstate himself in their favor, Muñoz pretended that the treaty had been violated on the part of Melendez, marched against him, and drove him and his followers into the mountains of Chimalapa, where he has since remained concealed. The Tehuantepec Surveying Expedition is now encamped at La Ventosa, a port on the Pacific. The route of the Railroad across the mountains has not yet been decided upon, the survey being a matter of difficulty on account of the dense forests with which the country is covered.

In Yucatan, the war between the Spanish and Indian races is raging with great ferocity. The Indians, who are supplied with arms and ammunition by the English at Belize, have advanced to within thirty miles of Merida, where a line of defence has been established by the Spaniards. Fourteen thousand soldiers are there opposed to more than twenty thousand Indians, and the subjugation of the latter, without help from abroad, is impossible. The troops of Yucatan are destitute of clothing and supplies, and as most of the wealthy citizens of the State have been reduced to beggary by these reverses, the threatened extermination of the Spanish race seems near at hand. A conspiracy to burn the city of Merida, formed by some of the soldiers, in conjunction with the convicts in the city prison, was discovered but a short time before it was to have been carried into effect. The conspirators were condemned to death.

CENTRAL AMERICA.

The hostilities between Guatemala on the one hand and the States of Honduras and San Salvador on the other, have been temporarily suspended, since the defeat of the latter States. The armies met at a little village called La Arada. The battle lasted four hours, when the allied army, commanded by Vasconcelos, President of San Salvador, was completely routed, with a loss of 500 men. His arrival at the capital was the occasion of a riot among the lower classes, and he did not immediately resume his executive functions. Carrera in the mean time advanced to Santa Anna, thirty miles from the frontier, where he made propositions for peace. The provisional President of San Salvador replied that no negotiations could take place until the troops were withdrawn from the territory. This was done, but at the last accounts no treaty had been made. The President of the National Diet of Central America has issued a proclamation demanding the cessation of hostilities. The blockade of the port of Amapala, in Honduras, has been abandoned by the British fleet. Three iron steamers, intended for the navigation of the San Juan River and Lake Nicaragua, are now building in Wilmington, Delaware, and will be placed upon the route on the 1st of July, at which time the line will be complete, and steamships will leave New-York and San Francisco direct for Central America. The journey from sea to sea will be made in about twenty-four hours.

THE WEST INDIES.

The Island of Cuba is at present in an excited state on account of rumors that another piratical expedition was being fitted out in the United States, the vessels of which were to rendezvous at Apalachicola Bay. This was at first looked upon as entirely groundless, but letters from Georgia and Alabama have since partially confirmed the statement. There is an active force of 25,000 men on the island, and any attempt at invasion will be unsuccessful. The Captain-General, Concha, continues his course of reform, abolishing all useless restrictions, and establishing needful regulations, so far as his power extends. The Venezuelan Consul at Havana has been discharged from his functions, and ordered to leave the island in eight days, in consequence of having furnished money to Gen. Lopez, with whom he is connected[Pg 275] by marriage. Mr. Clay, during his stay on the island, was honored with every expression of respect.

In Hayti, the efforts of the American, English, and French Consuls have thus far succeeded in preventing a war between the Haytiens and the Dominicans. A commission of four persons has been appointed to confer with the Consuls in regard to this subject. Several of the Dominican chiefs have arrived at Port-au-Prince, where they were very kindly received, and it was believed that peace will be speedily established. A political conspiracy has been detected at Port-au-Prince. Among the persons concerned in it was the late Chief Justice, M. Francisque, and one of the three ministers of Soulouque. A large number of arrests were made, and the prisoners tried by court-martial. Eight of them, including the Chief Justice, were condemned and publicly shot.

The cholera has not yet wholly disappeared from Jamaica. The budget for the island estimates the liabilities at £248,300, and the income at £215,850, leaving a deficiency in the revenue of £32,450.

SOUTH AMERICA.

There are now about 900 persons employed on the Panama Railroad, and the track to Gatun, a distance of twenty-six miles, will be ready for the locomotive by the 1st of July next. There was much excitement on the Isthmus towards the close of March, caused by a report that the specie train, carrying $1,000,000 in silver for the British steamer, had been attacked by robbers. It happened, however, that only a single mule-load was taken, which was afterwards abandoned by the robbers and recovered. Three of the boatmen arrested for the murder of passengers on the Chagres River have been found guilty and sentenced to be shot. A large fire broke out on the island of Taboga, in the bay of Panama, destroying fifty huts, and property to the amount of $50,000. Several parties have returned to Panama from the gold region of Choco, in New Grenada. They found the rivers of the region abounding in rich gold-washings, but were forced to abandon the enterprise from want of supplies.

In Chili, the 12th of February, the anniversary of Chilian independence, was celebrated with imposing ceremonies. The municipality of Valparaiso are making exertions to establish a general system of primary instruction for the children of the city. The survey of the railroad to Santiago has been carried about fifty miles, to which distance a favorable line has been obtained. The island of Chilöe, in the southern part of the Republic, was suffering from a protracted drought. The election for President was to take place in the month of March.

In Buenos Ayres, the opening of the Legislature and the Annual Message of the President have been postponed by mutual agreement. The financial affairs of the republic are in an exceedingly prosperous condition, the available resources on hand for the present year amounting to more than $36,000,000. By order of the government, the civil and military officers were directed to wear the customary mourning on the 24th of January, "as a token of grief for the death and respect for the memory of the illustrious General Zachary Taylor, late President of the United States of America."

A terrible accident occurred in the harbor of Rio Janeiro on the 8th of February. The French schooner Eliza, while at anchor near the fort, with a large quantity of gunpowder on board, blew up with a tremendous explosion, and soon after sank. She had 240 passengers, only a few of whom were on board at the time. Ten were killed and twenty wounded.

ASIA.

In British India, a portion of the Nizam's territory has been made over to the East India Company, as an equivalent for a debt of £60,000 due to it. Lord Dalhousie is engaged in introducing a system of education into the Punjaub. The Sikhs warmly second him in his endeavors. The English authorities are also engaged in constructing 350 miles of canal in this district.

Late news from China confirms the intelligence of the death of Commissioner Lin. Key-ing, the former Commissioner, has been disgraced, on account of his liberal course towards the Europeans. A system of smuggling, on a very extensive scale, has been discovered in the neighborhood of Shanghai. It is announced that a race of Jews has been discovered by some agents of the London Missionary Society in the interior of China, about 350 miles beyond Pekin.

AFRICA.

A fierce and devastating war has broken out at the Cape of Good Hope, between the British Colonists and the native tribe of the Kaffirs. The savages arose in large bands and commenced a general attack on all the farms along the frontier. The native servants of the settlers joined them, and they had penetrated into the older and more thickly populated districts on the coast, before they received any check from the Government forces. Several battles have taken place, in which the Kaffirs were generally routed, but they are a brave and warlike race, and cannot be subdued without a stronger force than has yet been sent against them. In the Beaufort and Fort Cradock districts, the country for the distance of 150 miles was abandoned, the homesteads burnt, and the stock driven off. At the latest dates, the Governor, Sir Harry Smith, was raising a force of 10,000 men.

We have news from Liberia to the 23d of January. At a late trial for a capital offence in Monrovia, several native Africans sat on the jury. Other natives hold commissions as policemen and other minor functionaries. Bassa Cove, on the coast, had been very unhealthy for some months.

POLYNESIA.

Some difficulty has arisen at the Sandwich Islands, between the commander of the French frigate Sérieuse and the Hawaiian Government. The French commander demanded the payment of $25,000 as a commutation for customs alleged to have been collected contrary to treaty obligations. The King refused to accede to this claim, and threw himself on the protection of Great Britain and the United States. Upon this the French commander landed his men at Honolulu, where he has prevented several Hawaiian vessels from proceeding to sea.

Several different parties of exploration are now endeavoring to penetrate into the interior of the African continent. Mr. Livingston, at the last accounts, was proceeding northward from Lake Ngami. Dr. Beke, in Abyssinia, and the Rev. Mr. Thompson, on the Gaboon River, have also made some very interesting discoveries in African geography and natural history.[Pg 276]

Record of Scientific Discovery.

New Motors.—Sir John Scott Lillie, Companion of the Bath, of Paris, has just received an English patent for improvements in the application of motive powers. One of these improvements consists in directing currents of air, or other gaseous fluids, through inverted troughs or channels, for the propulsion of boats and barges in the conveyance of goods and passengers. The troughs are placed longitudinally, one on each side of the vessel; or one may be placed between two vessels having one deck. Their form may be either square or oblong; and they are left open so that the currents of air in their passage to, and escape at or near, the stern of the vessel, may act upon the water, until they pass off into the air. They are supplied by air through a shaft, passing vertically through the centre of the deck. Another of the improvements consists in suspending paddle-wheels at or near the stern of the vessel, which are set in motion by the action of the currents as they pass off into the air, thereby increasing the motive power; or such paddle-wheels may be moved without the intervention of the troughs or channels, by the motion of currents of air or other gaseous fluids, forced through tubes or cylinders. The patent was enrolled in the early part of March.

Water Gas.—The English patent for Paine's Light was enrolled on the 12th of December, in the name of Alfred Vincent Newton, of Chancery Lane, Middlesex. The London Patent Journal publishes the specifications and figures, remarking that the report has been ready for some time, but was not published at the particular request of the assignee of the patent in England. It states that the invention is for decomposing water by means of electricity, and producing therefrom a gas, which, after being made to pass through spirits of turpentine or other hydro-carbonous fluids, will, when ignited, burn with great brilliancy. The invention is known by the name of "Paine's Light"—this being, in fact, Mr. Paine's specification, in which he states, that although water has been spoken of as decomposed by the electric currents, he wishes it to be understood that this is merely to accord with the generally received chemical doctrines and phraseology, and that water, after all, may be a simple element; however that may be, the patentee wishes, at present, to lay it down as certain that by discharging electricity through water, large quantities of gases are evolved; and that one of such gases, at least, when passed through turpentine, in the manner described, will burn and give a highly illuminating light. Mr. Paine's affairs in England being thus adjusted, it is possible that more will be heard of it on this side. The benefits of the invention are hid under a bushel.

Improvements in the Steam-Engine.—An English patent has been granted to Mr. George Smith, of Manchester, engineer, for four improvements upon the steam-engine. The first is an improved arrangement of apparatus by which cold water is made to enter the exhaust passages of steam cylinders, as near the valves as possible; by condensing a portion of the exhausted steam it becomes hot and then passes off, while the uncondensed steam passes either into the condenser or the atmosphere. This improvement is applicable to marine, stationary, and locomotive engines. The second improvement consists in an improved apparatus applied to low-pressure boilers, by which the water in the boiler is maintained at a regular height, and by which the danger of explosions from deficiency of water is removed. The third, consists of hot and cold water pumps, and is also applicable to air-pumps and lifting-pumps. The fourth is in the construction of metallic packing of pistons for steam cylinders, air-pumps, and other similar pistons, by which greater strength and elasticity are obtained.

New Applications of Zinc and its Oxides.—Mr. William Edward Norton has obtained a patent in England for improvements in obtaining, preparing and applying zinc and other volatile metals, and their oxides, and in the application of zinc, to the preparation of certain metals, and alloys of metals. The improvements are six in number; consisting of an improved furnace for the preparation of zinc and its white oxide, with new forms of front and rear walls—a mode of dispensing with the common retorts for the reduction of the ores of zinc into oxides, and replacing them by one large retort, in which the ore is more advantageously treated—the application of zinc to the alloy of iron and steel, which are thereby rendered more malleable and less liable to oxidation—a saving of the products of distillation and oxidation of zinc and other volatile metals, by means of a cotton, woollen, flaxen, or other similar fabric, in connection with a suitable exhausting apparatus,—the application of zinc to the formation of pigments,—and, lastly, the application of the ore called Franklinite to the reduction of iron from its ores, and its subsequent purification, and in saving the volatile products by means of a suitable condensing or receiving apparatus. Franklinite, which has hitherto only been found in any quantity near the Franklin forge, Sussex county, in the State of New Jersey, consists of the following substances, according to Berthier and Thomson: Peroxide of iron, 66; oxide of zinc, 17; sesqui-oxide of manganese, 16; total, 99.

A new adaptation of Lithography to the process of printing in oil has lately been invented by M. Kronheim of Paternoster-row, London. Hitherto no strictly mechanical means have existed for successfully producing copies of paintings, combining the colors and brilliant effects as well as the outlines and shadings of the original. The ingenious invention of Mr. Kronheim, while it enables him to supply copies of the great masters wonderfully accurate in every respect, reduces the cost of such copies to one-half the price of steel-engravings, and is a far more expeditious process. The invention has reduced to a certainty the practice of a new process by which the appreciation of art may be more widely extended, and the works of great artists popularized.

The Annual of Scientific Discovery, (published in Boston by Gould and Lincoln), is an excellent abstract of all the chief movements and discoveries in the scientific world for the year 1850. We advise all our readers interested in any of the sciences to procure it, and its companion volume for the previous year. The work will be continued, and it will be invaluable as a library of facts and suggestions.[Pg 277]

Oxygen from Atmospheric Air.—M. Boussingault has recently obtained some interesting results from his investigations in relation to oxygen. The problem upon which he has been engaged was the extraction of oxygen gas, in a state of purity and in a considerable quantity, from the azote in the atmosphere. For this purpose, a preference was given to baryte, owing to its property of remaining in oxygen of a moderate temperature, and abandoning it under the influence of a heat sufficiently intense. Ten kilogrammes of baryte, completely oxidized, were found able to take and afterward return 730 litres of gas. This is the number indicated by theory; for celerity of operation, more than 600 litres can be counted on. In that limit, and in operating on 100 kilos. of matter, 6,000 litres of oxygen gas might be disengaged at each disoxidization; four or five operations might be performed in 24 hours, which would thus furnish from 24,000 to 30,000 litres of gas.

The discovery of the virtues of a Whitened Camera for Photography, announced in our last issue, has excited a remarkable sensation in England. Mr. Kilburn, photographer to the Queen, who has experimented upon the new plan with great success, is sparring with M. Claudet. The point in dispute is the tendency of the improved method to weaken the image. If the statements of those who claim to have succeeded are reliable, it is evident that the ordinary form of camera may be abandoned, and any image be received directly from the lens upon plates or paper exposed to a diffused light.

M. Laborde states, in a paper on Photography read before the Paris Society for the Encouragement of Arts, that the nitrate of zinc may be substituted for acetic acid in the preparation of photographs on paper; that it increases the sensitiveness of the silver coating, and even allows an alkaline reaction to the iodide of potassium bath.

A paper was lately read by Professor Abich, before the Geographical Society of London, on the Climate of the Country between the Black and Caspian Seas. Professor Abich noticed the outlines of the extraordinary variety of climate in the lands between these bodies of water, and sketched the geological and orological structure of the country, which he has minutely examined for several years by order of the Russian Government. The whole tract is divided by three different lines of elevation—viz. that of S. E. to N. W.—that of W. to E., and that of S. W. to N. E. The isothermal line of 57° and 59°, after traversing the country between the Black and the Caspian Seas, inflects abruptly toward the South again, reaching the Caspian. The mean temperature along the shores of the two seas is for the year about equal; but the difference of the temperature of the seasons is very great. Lenkoran, in the same latitude as Palermo and Smyrna, with an annual temperature of 61° and 63°, has the summer of Montpellier 76°, and the winter of Maestricht and Turin, 35°. In Calchis, there is the winter of the British Isles, 41° and 42°, and the summer of Constantinople, 72° and 73°. Tiflis, with the winter of Padua, 37°, has the summer of Madrid and Naples, 74°. The extremes of Asiatic climate are found on the volcanic highlands of Armenia.

The Academy of Sciences at Paris has recently heard a report on certain explorations made in 1847-8-9 by M. Rochet d'Hericourt, a traveller in north-eastern Africa. This traveller has, by repeated observations, determined the latitude of Mt. Sinai to be 28° 33' 16", of Suez 29° 57' 58", of Devratabor 11° 51' 12", and of Gondar 12° 36' 1". Mt. Sinai is 1978 metres (about 6500 feet) high. Mt. Dieu 2174 metres (7200 feet), and the highest of the Horch Mountains 2477 metres (8100 feet). The Lake of Frana, south of Gondar, is 1750 metres (5700 feet) below the level of the sea, and its depth in one place is 197 metres (645 feet). Rar-Bonahite, the highest peak in Abyssinia, is 4330 metres (14,200 feet) high, but not high enough to have snow. The traveller describes a great variety of hot-springs, some of which contained living fish an inch long. The geology of Abyssinia he has thoroughly investigated. In the north, the principal rocks are granite and syenite. Among the plants he describes is a magnificent lobelia, almost large enough to be called a tree, which is found to the very summits of the mountains, and to a height which would not be supposed to admit of such a growth. He also finds the plant whose root has been found to be a specific against hydrophobia. Of this he brought back seeds, which have been planted in the Jardin des Plantes with success. A peculiar breed of sheep M. Rochet d'Hericourt thought worthy of being transferred to France, but of the pair he sent the female died on the route. This sheep has a very long and silky fleece. On the shores of Lake Frana he also found a very large sort of spiders, whose cocoons, he said, were converted into excellent silk. He thinks these spiders might be brought to Europe, and employed in producing silk, but in this he probably does not enough consider the difficulty, or rather the impossibility, of domesticating and feeding these insects.

Enormous fossil eggs were found a few weeks since subjects of curious discussion in Paris, and several notices were translated for the New-York papers. The eggs were discovered in Madagascar. M. Isodore Geoffrey St. Hilliare, in a recent report to the Academie des Sciences, furnished further details; and three eggs and some bones belonging to a gigantic bird, which have been presented to the Museum of Natural History in Paris, would seem to leave no room for doubt. Fairy tales are daily thrown into shade by the authentic records of science. This discovery appears to have been stumbled on curiously enough. The captain of a merchant vessel trading to Madagascar noticed one day a native who was using for domestic purposes a vase which much resembled an enormous egg, and on questioning him was informed that many such were to be found in the interior of the island. The largest of these eggs would hold two gallons. The volume equals that of 135 hen's eggs. Some doubts were at first entertained as to the nature of the animal to which the fossil bones belonged; but M. St Hilliare—a competent judge in such matters—has pronounced them to be those of a bird to which he has given the name of Epiornis.

The sum of £1000 has been placed by the British Government at the disposal of the Royal Institution, for scientific purposes.[Pg 278]

In the Paris Academy of Sciences (first meeting in March), M. Leverrier submitted a communication from Mr. W. C. Bond, entitled Observations on the Comet of Faye, made at the Observatory of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Every thing is prized that comes from that quarter. M. Boussingault, the scientific agriculturist, read an extract from his memoir on the extraction of oxygen gas from atmospheric air. His undertaking was to extract, in a state of purity and in considerable quantity, the oxygen gas mixed with azote in atmospheric air, and he thinks that he has fully succeeded, by a process not attended with much difficulty. He details some unexpected results from his experiments. Cauchy made profound reports (from committees) respecting the Researches on Algebraic Functions by M. Puiseux, and the studies of Crystallography by M. Bravais. Papers on the speed of sound in iron, and on respiration in plants, and new schemes of atmospheric railroads were submitted. Attention was given to M. Burg's new observations concerning the advantageous use to be made of metallic bands in various nervous disorders in which the ordinary therapeutic expedients are found ineffectual. M. Peligot mentioned a memoir which he was soon to put forth as a sequel to the Researches on the nature and properties of the different Sugars, which he published in 1838. He has succeeded in extracting, by means of lime, the crystallizable sugar, in large quantity, contained in molasses. He got twenty-five per cent., by the agency of lime, carbonic acid, or sulphuric acid. Lime is cheap and harmless. Other circumstances recommend his series of experiments. A scientific reporter writes mysteriously of the discovery of a very simple and easy method of extracting sugar from the beet-root; with an apparatus which costs very little, any one may make his sugar with as much facility as he boils his pot.

Of the Expedition To Central Africa, we learn from the Athenæum that letters from Dr. Barth and Dr. Overweg have been received in London by Chevalier Bunsen, by which it appears that up to October last the travellers were still detained in the kingdom of Aïr. A previous communication gave an account of difficulties and dangers which they had met with on entering that country; the inhabitants of which had shown themselves hostile to them, so that their fate seemed entirely to depend on the protection of the Prince En-Nūr, sultan of the Kelvës. This hoped-for protection they have been fortunate enough to secure; though it appears not to have been sufficient to insure their safety beyond Tin-Tellus, the residence of the Prince, in consequence of which they have been obliged to forego the exploration of the country, and to remain with the Prince. They have however been enabled, while thus stationary, to collect a good deal of oral information,—especially respecting the tract of country to the west and southwest of Ghat: which, instead of being a monotonous desert, proves to be intersected by many fertile wadys with plenty of water. Among these novel features, not the least interesting is a lake, between Ghat and Tuat, infested with crocodiles. At the date of Dr. Barth's letter (2d of October) the travellers were on the point of setting out on an excursion to Aghades, the capital of Aïr; the new sultan having promised them his protection, and the valiant son-in-law of En-Nūr accompanying them on their journey. The latitude of Tin-Tellus has been found to be 18° 34' N.; the longitude has not been finally determined. The rainy season lasts till September, and thunder-storms occur daily in the afternoon between two and three o'clock, accompanied by a west wind, while at other times it blows from the east. It seems yet uncertain when the expedition will be able to start for lake Tchad.

Gen. Radowitz, the late Minister of Prussian Affairs in Prussia, and undeniably one of the most brilliant Germans now living, recently appeared with great success in the character of a philologist before the Academy of Useful Sciences at Erfurt. A much larger audience than usual present, drawn thither by the oratorical reputation of the General, who was announced to deliver an essay on the Development of the Celtic Race in England, and especially in Wales. Great was the astonishment, when, instead of the usual thick manuscript, the General drew forth a single sheet containing his notes, and proceeded to speak from it for above an hour. He dwelt with pride on the fact that a German (Dr. Meyer, the private secretary of Prince Albert) had cast a reconciling light on the long contest between English and Erse archæologists. He then said there had been two Celtic immigrations, an eastern and a western. The latter was the more ancient and important; its route was through Syria, Northern Africa, and Spain, to England, where it appeared in three phases, one under Alv, whence the name of the country Albion (ion, a circle, an isolated thing, an island); another under Edin, whence Edinburgh, in old documents Car Edin (Car Breton, Ker burgh, as in Carnaervon, Carmarthen, &c.); and the third under Pryd, whence Britain (ain—ion). Such etymologic analyses marked this brilliant discourse. Fingal he derived from fin fair, and gal a stranger, and proved the affinity between the Gauls and Gael, the later word meaning vassal, while Gaul comes from gal. In the second part of his essay he demonstrated that the Celts were the inventors of rhyme, and in the discussion which followed maintained this position against several distinguished philologists who were present.

Mr. Cagniard Latour has brought to the notice of the Paris Academy of Sciences a process for making artificial coal, by putting different woods in a closed tube, and slowly charring them over burning charcoal. The coal varies in character according to the age and hygrometric state of the woods employed. The wood of young trees is converted into a glutinous coal; the old wood, of dry fire, into a dry coal. But these last, if soaked in water before being placed in the tube, give a glutinous coal like the young wood, and sometimes a brown rosin, similar to asphaltum.

A scientific Congress has been sitting in Paris. Several men of high reputation, Mr. Walsh says, took part in its proceedings, which gave promise of unusual interest. Charles Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, was prominent as an orator. Recently, he could rally but two votes in the Academy of Sciences, as a candidate for a vacant seat. The man is not so much prized, we may believe, as the ornithologist.[Pg 279]

M. Eoelmen, the director of the national porcelain manufactory of Sevres, has succeeded in producing crystalized minerals, resembling very closely those produced by nature—chiefly precious and rare stones employed by jewelers. To obtain this result, he has dissolved in boric acid, alum, zinc, magnesia, oxydes of iron, and chrome, and then subjecting the solution to evaporation during three days, has obtained crystals of a mineral substance, equaling in hardness and in beauty and clearness of color the natural stones. With chrome, M. Eoelmen has made most brilliant rubies, from two to three millimetres in length, and about as thick as a grain of corn. If rubies can be artificially made, secrets which were pursued by the alchemists of old cannot be very far off.

At a late meeting of the Liverpool Polytechnic Society, Captain Purnell read a paper in explanation of his plan for preventing vessels being water-logged at sea. Cisterns are to be provided on each side in the interior of the vessel, fitted with valves opening by pressure from within. The water would thus be kept below a certain level, and the ship be enabled to carry sail.

Prof. Hassenstein, of Gotha, recently illuminated the public square before the Council House in that city with his new electric sun. The effect was most brilliant, as if a bevy of full moons had risen together, and the applause of the beholders, the newspapers assure us, was unbounded.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science will this year meet at Cincinnati, on the approaching 5th of May.

Recent Deaths.

Samuel Farmer Jarvis, D.D., one of the most learned men in the Episcopal Church in the United States, died at Middletown, Connecticut, on the 26th of March. Dr. Jarvis was born in Middletown, where his father (afterward Bishop Jarvis) was then rector of Christ's Church, on the 20th of January, 1787. His childhood and early youth (we compile from the Hartford Calendar), were passed at Middletown till the Bishop removed with him to Cheshire, where, in the Academy established by Bishop Seabury, he completed his preparation for College. He entered at Yale, in 1802, commenced Bachelor of Arts in 1805, and proceeded Master in 1808. On the 18th of March, 1810, he was ordained Deacon by his father, in New Haven; and on the fifth of April, in the year following, in the same place, was admitted Priest. Immediately after, he became Rector of St. Michael's and St. James' Churches, on the island of New-York. In 1819, he was appointed Professor of Biblical Criticism, in the General Theological Seminary, with the understanding that he was to perform also, all the duties of instruction, except those relating to Ecclesiastical History. For various reasons, in 1820 he resigned this position, and removing to Boston, became the first Rector of St. Paul's Church in that city. In 1826, he sailed with his family for Europe, in different parts of which he remained nine years. Here he chiefly devoted himself to studies connected with Theology and the History of the Church. He by no means, however, omitted the proper duties of his office. His longest and most continuous service was in Siena; on leaving which place, the congregation presented to him a paten and chalice of exquisite workmanship, as a testimony of respect for his character, and of appreciation of his services.

During his residence abroad, he was appointed Professor of Oriental Languages and Literature in Trinity College, Hartford, and on returning to the United States in 1835, he established himself at the College; attending not only to various duties in connection with the College Classes, but also instructing the students in Theology. Those who were there under his instruction, will not soon forget the delightful evenings in his study, when the recitation being over, conversation took its place, and stores of the most useful and varied learning were opened to them, with a kindness and unreservedness, which never could have been surpassed. In 1837, he became Rector of Christ Church, Middletown, and in this position—having with him during the last year of its continuance only, an Assistant Minister—he remained till the spring of 1842. He then resigned the Rectorship, and devoted himself to the especial work to which the Church had called him. Still he evinced the same readiness as ever to perform at all times and in all places, the duties of his sacred office; and his missionary labors during this period, will ever attest his faithfulness to his vows as a priest of God.

In 1843 Dr. Jarvis went to England, with a view to certain arrangements in connection with the publication of his Chronological Introduction, and returned in time for the General Convention of 1844. From this period, he was steadily engaged in the prosecution of the first volume of his History: though his attention was frequently called off by other demands upon his time and knowledge, among which may be particularly mentioned the compilation of a Harmony of the Gospels, the preparation of a work on Egypt—neither of which have yet been published—and the drawing up a reply to Milner's End of Controversy. At the same time, he was serving the Church as a Trustee of Trinity College, and of the General Theological Seminary; as the Secretary of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Connecticut, and Secretary and Treasurer of the Christian Knowledge Society; and as a member of Diocesan and General Conventions. Besides all this, there was a large field of service and usefulness—the labor and worth of which can only be estimated by one who should see the correspondence which it entailed—which was opened to him, by the requests continually made from all quarters, for his opinions on matters of Doctrine, Discipline, and Worship. His life was one of constant labor, and labor and trial wrought their work upon him. Scarcely had his last work (the first volume of his History) been issued from the press, when aggravated disease came upon him; and after lingering for some time, with unmurmuring patience and resignation, he died on the 26th of March, 1851, at the age of sixty-four.

Thomas Burnside, one of the justices of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, died in Germantown on the twenty-fifth of March. He was born in the county of Tyrone, Ireland, July 28th, 1782, and came to this country, with his father's family, in 1792. In November, 1800, he commenced the study of the law, with Mr. Robert Porter, in Philadelphia, and in the early part of[Pg 280] 1804 was admitted to the bar, and removed to Bellefonte. In 1811 he was elected to the state Senate, and was an active supporter of the administration of Governor Snyder in all its war measures. In 1815 he was elected to Congress, and served during the memorable session of 1816. In the summer of the same year he was appointed by Governor Snyder President Judge of the Luzerne district. He resigned this post in 1818, and resumed the practice of his profession at Bellefonte. In 1823 he was again elected to the State Senate, of which body he was made speaker. In 1826 he was appointed President Judge of the Seventh Judicial District, which office he held until 1841. He was then appointed President Judge of the Fourth Judicial District, comprising the counties of Bucks and Montgomery. On the first of January, 1845, he was commissioned one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, an office which he filled at the time of his death. Judge Burnside was a man of fine social qualities, and few persons have had more friends.

Isaac Hill, Governor of New Hampshire, United States senator, &c., was born at Cambridge, the part now called Somerville, Mass., April 6th, 1788. He was a descendant of Abraham Hill of Charlestown, who was admitted freeman 1640, and died at Malden, February 13, 1670, leaving two sons, Isaac and Abraham. From the latter of these, and fifth in descent, was Isaac, the father of Governor Hill. His mother was Hannah Russell, a descendant of the Cambridge family of that name, "ever distinguished in the annals of Massachusetts."[M] His ancestors were stanch patriots, on both sides, and served with credit in the old French and Indian wars, and his immediate predecessors were among the earliest and the most efficient of the "Sons of Liberty," well known for their undaunted spirit in encouraging resistance to the arbitrary and oppressive acts which occasioned the Revolution.

The circumstances in which the war and other calamities had placed his family were extremely unfavorable to the enjoyment of any educational privileges, and he was debarred from most opportunities of acquiring even the rudiments of that culture now common and free to all. But he struggled manfully with these difficulties, the sharp discipline of Necessity giving to him an early training well calculated to impress his character with the seal of manliness and self-reliance. His intellectual constitution was early accustomed to the keen atmosphere of wholesome severity; and it nerved and braced him for the warfare of his subsequent career. In it, too, we may find the origin of his peculiar traits as a writer and a politician. He wrote in a vigorous but not polished style, and all his productions were more forcible than elegant. But their very bareness and sinewy proportions opened their way to the hearts of the people whom he addressed. His prejudices were their prejudices, and in the most earnest expression of his own strongest feeling and passion he found the echo from the multitude of the democracy of his adopted state.

His childhood and early youth thus formed, his next step was in the learning his trade, or acquiring his profession: for if any occupation in life combines more elements of professional knowledge than another, it is that of a printer-editor.

Though not an indented apprentice, he served his seven years' time with faithfulness, and acquired those habits of patient, persevering industry which characterized his whole subsequent career. The printing-office has been the college and university to many of the most distinguished of our citizens: and that which he founded at Concord has been the Alma Mater of a series of graduates, of whom old Dartmouth might justly be proud, could she enroll them among her Alumni. Although the paper published by Mr. Cushing, with whom young Hill learned his profession, was strongly federal, he retained the strong democratic prejudices of his father's house, which he afterwards so zealously advocated in more responsible positions.

He went to Concord, N. H, on the 5th April 1809, the day before he attained his majority. He bought an establishment of six months' standing, from which had been issued the American Patriot, a democratic paper, but not conducted with any great efficiency, and therefore not considered as yet "a useful auxiliary in the cause of republicanism." On the 18th of April, 1809, was issued the first number of the New Hampshire Patriot, a paper destined to exert an immense influence in that state from that time to the present. The press on which it was printed was the identical old Ramage press on which had been struck off the first numbers of the old Connecticut Courant, forty-five years before, that is, in 1764. The first number of the paper is before us. It bears for its motto the following sentiment of Madison, "Indulging no passions which trespass on the rights of others, it shall be our true glory to cultivate peace by observing justice." Among the selections is a portion of the famous speech of William B. Giles, in the Senate, February 13th, 1809, in support of the resolution for a repeal of the Embargo, and substituting non-intercourse with the aggressing belligerents, offered by him on the 8th of the same month. In the next number of the paper the editor expresses the opinion that "the man, who, after reading this lucid exposition of British aggressions, can blame his own government—can accuse the administration of a want of forbearance, and a wish to provoke a war with England without cause, must be wilfully blind or perversely foolish." This recalls at once the circumstances of the time, shortly after the beginning of Madison's administration, and during the Embargo. Democracy was odious in New England, where the prostration of her commercial interests, the ruin of many and serious injury of all her citizens, had rendered the administration exceedingly unpopular. The Patriot, however, steadily defended the administration and the war which followed. Probably there will always exist a difference of opinion with respect to the necessity or expediency of the war of 1812; but public opinion has given its sanction to what is now known as the "Second War of Independence." Since that time its advocates have been steadily supported by the country, and among them the subject of this sketch, who always referred with peculiar pride to that portion of his career—"the dark and portentous period which preceded the war."

Mr. Hill continued to edit the Patriot until 1829, a period of twenty years; during which time he was twice chosen clerk of the State Senate, once Representative from the town of Concord, and State Senator four times. In 1828, he was the[Pg 281] Democratic candidate for U.S. Senator, but was not elected. In 1829, he received the appointment of Second Comptroller of the Treasury Department from General Jackson, and discharged the duties of that office until April, 1830, when his nomination was rejected by the Senate of the United States. The light in which his rejection was regarded in New Hampshire, may be inferred from the fact that its result was his triumphant election to represent that State in the body which had rejected him. He continued in the Senate until 1836, when he was elected Governor of the State of New Hampshire by a very large majority. He was twice reëlected, in 1837 and 1838.

In 1840, he was appointed Sub Treasurer at Boston, which he held until removed, in March, 1841, by the Harrison administration.

About this time the policy of the radical party in New Hampshire, to which Mr. Hill had always adhered, became tainted with an ultraism, which he could not approve. He opposed their hostility to railroad and other corporations, with the same vigor which had always characterized his career. He was subjected to the proscription of the party, and formally "read out" of the church of the New Hampshire Democracy. He established a new paper, "Hill's New Hampshire Patriot," in which he revived his old reputation as an editor and political writer. The importance of the great internal improvements which he advocated, to the prosperity of the State, brought back the party from their wanderings into abstractions, and with this return to the old ways, came also the acknowledgment of the political orthodoxy of Mr. Hill. The new paper was united with the old Patriot—and one of his sons associated in the establishment.

During the latter years of his life, he also published and edited the Farmer's Monthly Visiter, an agricultural paper. It was commenced January 15, 1839, and has been continued to the present time. It was devoted to the farming and producing interests, and its volumes contain much valuable matter; of which Gov. Hill's own personal sketches and reminiscences form no small portion.

During the latter years of his life he suffered much from the disease which finally conquered his vigorous constitution. He bore little active part in political affairs—but took a lively interest in the success of the compromise measures—to which he referred in his last hours, as, in his opinion, most important in their bearing on the safety of the Union. He made great efforts to promote their passage, and probably did some service in the cause of the Union, to which he was ardently devoted. He recognized the compromises of the Constitution, with unwavering fidelity to its spirit. We regret our inability to give in this place some extracts from a letter of Daniel Webster, addressed to one of Mr. Hill's sons, upon the occasion of his death, which reflects equal honor upon the writer and its subject, in its recognition of the services to which we have referred.

The present occasion affords no opportunity to review more particularly the events of Mr. Hill's political career of public service. It is to be hoped that some one may hereafter prepare the history of his life and times—which involves an important part of the political history of New Hampshire, and a corresponding connection with that of the whole country.

We quote the following concluding paragraph of the notice in the New Hampshire Patriot of the 27th March, written by the present editor, Mr. Butterfield:

"We have thus hastily and imperfectly noticed the prominent events in Governor Hill's life. Few men in this country have exerted so great an influence over the people of their States as he has over those of New Hampshire. He possessed great native talent, indomitable energy, industry and perseverance. As a political editor he had few equals, and his reputation in that field extended throughout the country. As a son, a husband, a brother, and a father, he has left a reputation honorable to himself, and which will cause his memory to be cherished. Although afflicted for many years with a painful disease, exerting at times an unfavorable influence upon his equanimity, yet we believe the "sober second thought" of those who reflect upon his past history and services and trials, will accord with what we have said of his estimable private character, and his naturally kind and amiable disposition. And now that his spirit has gone to another, and, we trust, a better world, the unkindness engendered by political and personal differences will be forgotten, the faults and errors of the dead will be forgiven, and our thoughts will rest only upon his many private virtues and eminent public services."

The last illness of Mr. Hill was of about five weeks duration. He died of catarrhal consumption, in the city of Washington, Saturday, the 22d of March, 1851, at four o'clock, P. M. His remains were removed to Concord, New Hampshire, where his funeral took place on the 27th of March.

[We have made free use in the preceding notice of C. P. Bradley's sketch (1835), and various articles in newspapers of the day.]

David Daggett, LL. D., son of Thomas Daggett, of Attleborough, Massachusetts, was born in that town on the last day of the year 1764. He entered Yale College at fourteen, and graduated there with distinction in 1783. Pursuing his legal studies in New Haven, while he held the rectorship of the Hopkins Grammar School, he was admitted to the bar in 1785. For sixty-five years his life was identified with the history and prosperity of New Haven and of Connecticut. Besides the municipal offices which he held, including that of Mayor of New Haven, he was long a Professor of Yale College, in the Law School of which he was especially eminent. His last public station was that of Chief Justice of the State, from the duties of which he retired at the age of seventy, through the jealous wisdom of the constitution of Connecticut. His connection with the law school, however, continued till within a very few years, when his health became gradually impaired through the advance of age, though for the last year he enjoyed an unusual exemption from his infirmities. About the end of March his family became apprehensive of a change for the worse, and on Saturday, April 12th, he died, at the advanced age of eighty-six years.

Major James Rees, born in Philadelphia in 1766, died at Geneva, New-York, on the 24th of March. He was in his youth a confidential cleric to Robert Morris, the financier; during the Whiskey Insurrection in Pennsylvania, he was a Deputy Quarter-Master General under Washington, and he held the same office under Wilkinson and under Izard, in the war of 1812.[Pg 282]

Mordecai M. Noah, who for nearly half a century had been eminent as a politician and a journalist, and who was one of the most distinguished Jews of the present age, died in New-York on the 2nd of March. He was born in Philadelphia on the 19th of July, 1785, and at an early age was apprenticed to a carver and gilder in that city; but a love of literature and affairs induced the abandonment of that vocation for the more congenial one to which he devoted the chief part of his life. His editorial career commenced in Charleston, S. C., and some interesting passages of his history there are given in the first volume of Thomas's Reminiscences. In 1811 Mr. Madison appointed him consul at Riga, but he declined the place. In 1813 he was appointed by Mr. Monroe consul to Tunis, with a mission to Algiers. On the voyage his vessel was captured by a British frigate and taken to Plymouth. His diplomatic position exempted him from imprisonment, but he was detained several weeks, and did not reach his destination until February, 1814. Having accomplished the object of his mission, he crossed the Pyrenees, and visited Paris. After a brief residence in that city, he proceeded to Tunis, where he remained until recalled, in 1816. In 1819 he published a book of Travels, containing the result of his observations in Europe and Northern Africa, during a three years' residence in those countries. He now became one of the editors and proprietors of the National Advocate, in which he published the Essays on Domestic Economy, signed "Howard," which were subsequently printed in a volume. The next paper with which he was connected was the Enquirer, afterwards Courier & Enquirer, in the management of which he was associated with Colonel Webb. The several papers of which he was at various times editor or proprietor, or both, were the National Advocate, Enquirer, Courier & Enquirer, Evening Star, Sun, Morning Star, and Weekly Messenger. His most successful journal was the Evening Star, but he was eminently popular at all times as an editorial writer, and was very fortunate when he had, as in the Evening Star, or the Sunday Times, judicious business partners. Soon after his return from Africa occurred his celebrated attempt to assemble all the Jews of the world on this continent, and build a new Jerusalem at Grand Island, in the Niagara River.

In 1821 he was elected sheriff of the city and county of New-York. During his term of office the yellow fever broke out, and he opened the doors of the prisons and let go all who were confined for debt—an act of generous humanity which cost him several thousand dollars. He was admitted to the bar of this city in 1823, and to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1829. In 1829 he was also appointed, by President dent Jackson, Surveyor of the Port of New-York, which office he shortly afterward resigned. In the political contest of 1840, he took part against Mr. Van Buren, whom he had long regarded with distrust, and voted for General Harrison. In 1841 he was appointed by Governor Seward, Judge of the Court of Sessions. He was probably the only Hebrew who occupied a judicial station in Christendom. During the same year he was made Supreme Court Commissioner. When a change in the organization of the Court of Sessions took place he resigned his seat on the bench, and soon returned to his old profession. In 1843 he became one of the editors and proprietors of the Sunday Times, with which he was connected when he died.

Major Noah was a very rapid and an industrious writer. Besides his Travels in England, France, Spain, and the Barbary States, in the Years 1813, 1814, and 1815, and the Howard Papers on Domestic Economy, he published several orations and addresses on political, religious and antiquarian subjects; edited The Book of Jasher, and wrote numerous successful plays, of which an account may be found in Dunlap's History of the Stage. The most prominent of them were, She would be a Soldier, or the Plains of Chippewa; Ali Pacha, or the Signet Ring; Marion, or the Hero of Lake George; Nathalie, or the Frontier Maid; Yusef Caramali, or the Siege of Tripoli; The Castle of Sorrento, The Siege of Daramatta, The Grecian Captive, and Ambition. He for a long time contemplated writing Memoirs of his Times, and he published in the Evening Star many interesting reminiscences intended to form part of such work.

Major Noah was a man of remarkable generosity of character, and in all periods of his life was liberal of his means, to Christians as well as to Jews: holding the place of President in the Hebrew Benevolent Society, and being frequently selected as adviser in other temporary or permanent associations for the relief of distress. As a politician he was perhaps not the most scrupulous in the world, but there was rarely if ever any bitterness in his controversies. In religion he was sincere and earnest, and the Hebrews in America we believe uniformly held his character in respect

John S. Skinner, who was for a long time editor of the Turf Register at Baltimore, and who more recently conducted the very able magazine The Plow, the Loom, and the Anvil, died from an accident, in Baltimore, on the 28th of March, aged about sixty years. He had held the appointment of Post-Master at Baltimore for a period of twenty years, though removed from it fifteen years ago, and he was afterward Assistant Post-Master General. Intending to hurry out from the Baltimore Post-Office—which he had entered for some business with his successor—into the street, he inadvertently opened a door leading to the basement of the building, and before he could recover himself, plunged head foremost down the flight of steps. His skull was fractured, and he survived in a state of insensibility for a few hours only.

Brevet-Major-General George M. Brooke, of the United States Army, died at San Antonio, Texas, on the ninth of March. General Brooke entered the army, from Virginia, on the third of May, 1808, as First Lieutenant in the Fourth Infantry. He had received four brevets during his military life, and at the time of his death he was in command of the Eighth Military Department, (Texas,) and engaged in planning an expedition against the Indians.

Ferdinand Gotthelf Hand, Professor of Greek Literature at the University of Jena, died on the 14th March, at the age of sixty-five. He is best known for his work on the Æsthetik der Foukunst. He had filled his professorship since 1817.

M. Jacobi died on the nineteenth of February at Berlin. He was well known to the scientific world by his electro-chemical researches.[Pg 283]

Hans Christian Oersted, the great Danish naturalist, died at Copenhagen on the seventeenth of March, aged seventy-four. He was the son of an apothecary of Rudkjobing, in the province of Larzeland. Fourteen days before his death he gave a scientific lecture at the University of Copenhagen, where he was Professor of Natural Science. He was nearly of the same age with Thorwaldsen and Oehlenschlager. His last work, Der Geist in der Natur, was not long since the subject of remark in these pages. His fame as the discoverer of electro-magnetism, (which discovery he made, after laborious researches, on the fifth of June 1821,) and as a profound and genial thinker, will be immortal.

At Rudkjobing he received his early education with his brother Anders Sandöe Oersted, a distinguished senator of Denmark, and for some years one of the ministers of state. Christian Oersted was sent to Copenhagen to study medicine. After completing his course of pharmacy, he directed his powers to the study of natural philosophy, and greatly distinguished himself in that science, of which he subsequently became University Professor. His grand discovery of electro-magnetism led to the subsequent development of the electric telegraph. In 1807 he wrote his work reviving the hypothesis of the identity of magnetism and electricity, in which he arrived at the conclusion—that "in galvanism the force is more latent than in electricity, and still more so in magnetism than in galvanism; it is necessary, therefore, to try whether electricity, in its latent state, will not affect the magnetic needle." No experiment appears, however, to have been made to determine the question until 1820, when Oersted placed a magnetic needle within the influence of a wire connecting the extremities with a voltaic battery. The voltaic current was now, for the first time, observed to produce a deviation of the magnetic needle in different directions, and in different degrees, according to the relative situation of the wire and needle. By subsequent experiment Oersted proved that the wire became, during the time the battery was in action, magnetic, and that it affected a magnetic needle through glass, and every other non-conducting body, but that it had no action on a needle similarly suspended, that was not magnetic. To Professor Oersted is also due the important discovery, that electro-magnetic effects do not depend upon the intensity of the electricity, but solely on its quantity. By these discoveries an entirely new branch of science was established, and all the great advances which have been made in our knowledge of the laws which regulate the magnetic forces in their action upon matter, are to be referred to the discovery by Oersted, that by an electric current magnetism could be induced. He promulgated a theory of light, in which he referred luminous phenomena to electricity in motion; it has not, however, been favorably received.

One of the most important observations first made by him, and since then confirmed by others, was, that a body falling from a height not only fell a little to the east of the true perpendicular—which is, no doubt, due to the earth's motion—but that it fell to the south of that line; the cause of this is at present unexplained. It is, no doubt, connected with some great phenomena of gravitation which yet remain to be discovered. At the meeting of the British Association at Southampton, Professor Oersted communicated to the Chemical Section some curious examples of the influence of time in determining chemical change, as shown in the action of mercury upon glass in hermetically sealed vessels. The character of Professor Oersted's mind was essentially searching and minute; thus he observed results which escaped detection in the hands of those who took more general and enlarged views of natural phenomena. To this was due the discovery of electro-magnetism, which will for ever connect his name with the history of inductive science. As Director of the Polytechnic Institution of Copenhagen, of which he was the founder, and of the Society for the Diffusion of Natural Sciences, and as Perpetual Secretary of the Royal Academy of Sciences since 1815, his labors were unceasing and of great benefit to his country. He was for many years attached to the Military College of Cadets of Copenhagen, and only resigned when he could be succeeded by one of his own pupils. His manners and demeanor were extremely modest and unobtrusive. The British Royal Society awarded him the Copley Medal for his discovery in electro-magnetism, and the Academy of Sciences of Paris presented him with their Gold Medal. Both Societies elected him a Foreign Member.

Henri Delatouche, who died early in March at Aulnay, France, was born February 3d, 1785. His first work was Fragoletta, a book treating in an original way the revolution of Naples in 1799; it was the fruit of a long sojourn in Italy, a genuine production of genius, in which the chapters devoted to antique art are especially remarkable. During the Hundred Days he was the secretary of Marshal Brune, and was made sub-prefect of Toulon. The downfall of Napoleon deprived him of office, and restored him to literature and general politics. During the Restoration he gained great applause by his eloquent and successful defence of his father, who was tried before a political court, and but for his son would have been one of the victims of that bloody period. He was prominent in the agitation of public questions through that time, and through the ten first years of Louis Philippe. He was intimate with B. Constant Chateaubriand, Madame Recamier, Gros, Gerard, Armand Carrel, Godfrey Cavaignac, Beranger, and George Sand. He was one of the editors of the National, and the chief writer of the brilliant and effective Figaro. His books were Fragoletta, Aymar, France et Marie, Lettres de Clement XIV. et de Carlo Bertinazzi, Les Adieux. Though he adopted the form of romance, the purpose of his writings was historical and didactic. In the latter part of his life he made preparations to write a Histoire des Conjurations pour la Liberté, but did not accomplish it. He was a man of noble character and remarkable genius. His conversation was brilliant and fascinating. Since Diderot, it is said that France has produced no talker to be compared with him. George Sand frequently compares him to Rousseau. Like that philosopher, toward the close of his life he manifested a passionate love of nature and solitude. He spent his time laboring in his garden, and living in the most frugal manner. The aged and manly poet was beloved of the neighboring peasants, as well as by the friends he had left behind him in the great world; and though he had often criticised his contemporaries with extreme severity, sometimes even with injustice, he left no enemies.[Pg 284]

Among the persons lately deceased who are worthy of mention is Madame de Sermetzy, who died at her country seat, near the French city of Lyons, at the age of eighty-one years. Had circumstances favored the development of her genius, she would have acquired a name among the sculptors of the time. She left behind her a number of works in terra cotta. A Psyche of life-size is said to be full of expression and grace; a Plato is remarkable for anatomical correctness and manly force. Both are in the Academy at St. Pierre. She also modelled a Sappho, a Lesbia, and some dozen busts. Of smaller works, statuettes and groups, she has left some two hundred in terra cotta, among them a St Augustine, said to be admirable for expression and nobleness. The churches constantly received from her gifts of beautiful angels and madonnas. A few years before her death she modelled a madonna of the size of life, which is one of her best works. Want of means alone prevented her from executing her productions in marble. She was also familiar with the literature, not only of her own nation, but of the Latin, Spanish, Italian, and English languages, which she spoke with fluency and correctness, a rare accomplishment for a French woman. During the Empire and the Restoration she was intimate with Madame Recamier and Madame de Staël, and for penetration and readiness of mind and charm of manners was not unworthy to be named with these remarkable women.

Marshal Dode de la Bruniere, one of the soldiers of Napoleon, who raised him to the rank of Lieutenant-General, and employed him in many important services, died at Paris on the 28th February, aged seventy-seven. He served in the campaign of Egypt as a lieutenant of engineers. After the siege of Saragossa he was made a colonel. He participated in all the great battles of the empire, and was finally made a peer of France and a marshal by Louis Philippe, after having directed the construction of the gigantic fortifications around Paris. He was a frank, affable, and kind-hearted man.

M. Maillau, one of the most productive of Paris dramatists, died in that city March, twelfth, aged forty-five. He was born in Guadaloupe, and began life in France as a lawyer, but soon abandoned that profession to write for the stage. He wrote a large number of dramas, some of which were very successful. The last one, called La Révolution Française, has run a hundred and fifty nights, and is still performing. He was an excellent fellow, and nobody's enemy but his own.

Dr. Henry de Breslau, senior of the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Munich, died lately. He was second medical officer on the staff of Napoleon, under Larrey, and followed the French army in the Russian campaign. He was made prisoner on the field of Waterloo. France, Bavaria, Saxony, Greece, and Portugal, had recognized his scientific eminence by severally enrolling his name among their orders of chivalry.

Commissioner Lin, whose seizure and destruction of the opium in 1839 led to the war with China, died suddenly on the eighteenth of November last, while on his way to the insurrectionary district of Quan-si.

John Louis Yanoski was born at Lons-le-Saulnier, France, March 9, 1813, and died at Paris early in February last. Though not known much out of his own country, few literary men have possessed more admirable and substantial qualities. He was feeble in bodily powers, but endowed with indefatigable ardor in the pursuit of intellectual objects, and a mind at once penetrating and judicious. He was educated in the College of Versailles. In 1836 he became a tutor in history at the University at Paris. Subsequently he was selected by Thierry to assist in the preparation of his history of the Tiers-Etat, and spent four years in working upon it. At the same time he labored assiduously in other directions. In 1839 he gained two prizes from the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, one for a memoir on the organization of the national forces from the twelfth century to the reign of Charles VII; the other for an essay on the abolition of slavery in antiquity. In 1841 the Academy selected him to prepare, under the direction of M. Mignet, a view of the progress of the moral and political sciences, a work which was not completed when he died. In 1840 he was made professor of history in Stanislas College; in 1842 Michelet chose him for his substitute at the College of France, but in that capacity he gave but a single lecture, being seized while speaking with hemorrhage of the lungs, from which he did not recover for several months. Notwithstanding the labors required by all these occupations he found time to write for Didot's Univers Pittoresque a history of Carthage from the second Punic war to the Vandal invasion, a history of the Vandal rule and the Byzantine restoration, another of the African Church, and one of the Church of Ancient Syria. He also furnished many important articles to the Encyclopedic Dictionary, wrote often for the National newspaper, and for two years was chief editor of the Nouvelle Revue Encyclopédique. He was a republican in sentiment, and a character of exceeding nobleness and energy.

Colonel Count d'Hozier, a distinguished French officer, who was compromised in the affair of Georges Cadoudal, died early in March, in Paris, aged seventy-seven. On the occasion of the conspiracy referred to, he was sentenced to death, but obtained his pardon through the interference of the Empress Josephine, and as a commutation of his punishment was imprisoned until the year 1814 in the prison of the Chateau d'If—the scene of the confinement of Dumas' hero, the Comte de Montechristo.

M. George Brentano, the oldest banker at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, died a few weeks ago, aged eighty-eight. He was brother of two persons well known in the world of letters, M. Clement Brentano and the Countess Bettina d'Arnim, the correspondent of Goëthe.

Frederic Xavier Fernbach, the inventor of that mode of encaustic painting which is called by his name, died at Munich on the 27th February. A history of his experiments and inventions was published many years ago.

M. Jules Martien, author of a volume on Christianity in America, died in Paris on the twenty-first of March.

FOOTNOTES:

[M] Farmer's Genealogical Register: Articles Hill-Russell.

"OTSEGO HALL," THE RESIDENCE OF J. FENIMORE COOPER.

In the delightful home which in the above engraving is reflected with equal spirit and fidelity, our great novelist has composed the larger portion of those admirable tales and histories that display his own capacities, and the characteristics and tendencies of our people.

Here also was written the beautiful work by Mr. Cooper's daughter, entitled "Rural Hours." Could any thing tempt to such authorship more strongly than a residence thus quiet, and surrounded with birds, and flowers, and trees, and all the picturesque varieties of land and water which render Cooperstown a paradise to the lover of nature?

In the last International we sketched the career of Mr. Cooper, and gave an account of his writings, and an estimate of their value. What we add here shall relate to the work which entitles his daughter to share his eminence. "Rural Hours" is one of the most charming contributions literature has ever received from the hand of a woman. Though in the simple form of a diary, it is scarcely less than Thomson's "Seasons" a poem; yet while seeming continually to reflect the most poetical phases of nature and of rural life—so delicate is the appreciation of natural beauty, and so pure and unaffected and exquisitely graceful the style of composition—it has throughout even a Flemish truth and particularity of detail. If we were called upon to name a literary performance that is more than any other American in its whole character, we cannot now think of one that would sooner receive this praise. A record of real observations during the daily walks of many years in a secluded town, or of the changes which the seasons brought with their various gifts and forces into domestic experience, it is a series of pictures which could no more have been made in another country than so many paintings on canvas of scenes by Otsego lake. The leaves are blown over by Otsego airs, or if the eye grows heavy and the pages are unturned it is for slumberous spells that attach to delineations of the sunshine and silence of Otsego's August noons. And the views Miss Cooper gives us of the characters and occupations of the agricultural population in that part of the country, who wear curiously interblended the old English and Dutch habits with here and there a sign of the French, and the republican freedom which in three generations has taken the tone of nature, are as distinctive as the descriptions of changes which the maple assumes in the autumn, or of the harvest of Indian corn, or a deer hunt in the snow. Upon a careless reading of "Rural Hours" we might fancy that Miss Cooper was less familiar than perhaps should be for such a task with botany and other sciences, but a closer study of the book reveals the most minute and comprehensive knowledge, so interfused that it is without technical forms only, and never deficient in precision. The style is everywhere not only delightfully free, while artistically finished, but it is remarkably pure, so that there is in the literature of this country not a specimen of more genuine English. In this respect the work of one of the most highly and variously educated women of our time, to whom the languages of the politest nations were through all her youth familiar in their courts, may be well compared with the compositions which "literary ladies" with Phrase Books make half French or half Italian.[Pg 286]

GEORGE W. DEWEY.

Of our younger and minor poets no one has more natural grace and tenderness than George W. Dewey. The son of a painter, and himself the Secretary of the Philadelphia Art Union, it may be supposed that he is well instructed in the principles upon which effect depends; but while native genius, as it is called, is of little value without art, no man was ever made a poet by art alone, and it is impossible to read "Blind Louise," "A Memory," or "A Blighted May," without perceiving that Mr. Dewey's commission has both the sign and the countersign, in due form, so that his right to the title of poet is in every respect unquestionable. He has not written much, but whatever he has given to the public is written well, and all his compositions have the signs of a genuineness that never fails to please. There is no collection of his poems, but from the journals to which he contributes we have selected the following specimens:

A MEMORY.

BLIND LOUISE.

A BLIGHTED MAY.

THE SHADY SIDE.

Ladies' Fashions for the Early Summer.

Costume for a Young Girl.—In the above engraving the largest figure has boots of pale violet cachmere and morocco; trowsers of worked cambric; and dress of a pale chocolate cachmere, trimmed with narrow silk fringe, the double robings on each side of the front as well as the cape, on the half-high corsage, ornamented with a double row of narrow silk fringe, this trimming repeated round the lower part of the loose sleeve; the chemisette of plaited cambric, headed with a broad frill of embroidery; full under sleeves of cambric, with a row of embroidery round the wrist; open bonnet of pink satin, a row of white lace encircling the interior next the face. The second miss has button gaiter boots of chocolate cachmere; trowsers and undersleeves of white embroidered cambric; frock of plaided cachmere; paletot of purple velvet; hat of a round shape, of white satin, the low crown adorned with a long white ostrich feather.

The Boy's Dress is made to correspond as nearly as may be with that of the youngest girl—embroidered pantalettes, and under sleeves trimmed with pointed lace.[Pg 288]

Ladies' Morning Promenade Costume.—A high dress of black satin, the body fitting perfectly tight; has a small jacket cut on the biais, with row of black velvet laid on a little distance from the edge; the sleeves are rather large, and have a broad cuff turned back, which is trimmed to correspond with the jacket; the skirt is long and full; the dress is ornamented up the front in its whole length by rich fancy silk trimmings, graduating in size from the bottom of the skirt to the waist, and again increasing to the throat. Capote of plum-colored satin; sometimes plain, sometimes with a bunch of hearts-ease, intermixed with ribbon, placed low on the left side, the same flowers, but somewhat smaller, ornamenting the interior.

Evening Dress of white tulle, worn over a jape of rich pink satin; the waist and point of a moderate length; the sleeves and front of the corsage covered with fullings of tulle, clasped at equal distances by narrow bands of green satin; the skirt extremely full, and looped up on each side; the trimming, which reaches from the waist on each side the point to the bottom of the skirt, composed of loops of green satin ribbon edged with gold. Magnificent ribbons or beautiful flowers accompany the light trimmings which ornament the lighter evening dresses. A young lady is never more beautiful than when dressed in one of those robes, so rich in their simplicity, and distinguished by their embroideries, form, and trimmings. A robe of tarlatane, trimmed with seven flounces, deeply scalloped and worked with straw colored silk, is much in vogue. The same trimming, proportionably narrow, covers the berthe and sleeves. When worked with white silk, this dress is still more stylish. White or black lace canezous, worn with low-bodied silk dresses, are very much admired. They are open over the chest, and more or less worn with basques or straight trimmings round the waist, with half long sleeves, fastened up on the front, for the arm, by a ribbon bow.

Dress Hats are principally made of tulle or gauze lisse—those of the latter texture, made in white, of folds with rows of white gauze ribbon.

THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

Of Literature, Art, and Science.

Vol. III. NEW-YORK, MAY 1, 1851. No. II.

Contents

GEORGE WILKINS KENDALL.

WASHINGTON.

WILLIAM HOGARTH.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

YEAST: A PROBLEM.

THE LITTLENESS OF A GREAT PEOPLE.

A JEW AND A CHRISTIAN.

POLICARPA LA SALVARIETTA,

THE HEROINE OF COLOMBIA.

A REAL AMERICAN SAINT.

Authors and Books.

The Fine Arts.

HAS THERE BEEN A GREAT POET IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY!

THE REAL ADVENTURES AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF GEORGE BORROW.

ODE TO GOD.

FROM THE HEBREW.

PRAYER.

FROM THE ARABIC.

O LORD! I NOTHING CRAVE BUT THEE.

FROM THE TARTAR.

THE FAUN OVER HIS GOBLET.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

BY R. H. STODDARD.

FOOTNOTES:

THE JESUIT RELATIONS.

DR. O'CALLAGHAN'S MEMOIR—NEW DISCOVERIES IN ROME, &c.

FOOTNOTES:

THE HAT REFORM AGITATION.

PROFESSIONAL DEVOTION.

"THE WILFULNESS OF WOMAN."

ACT FIRST.—SCENE FIRST.

A room in the Chateau de Beaumont. Victorine de Vere and Rosalinde—the former sitting.

A STORY WITHOUT A NAME.[G]

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.

Continued from page 57.

CHAPTER XXII.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CHAPTER XXV.

FOOTNOTES:

NATURAL REVELATION.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY ALFRED B. STREET.

HEART-WHISPERS.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY MARY E. HEWITT.

THE SNOWDROP IN THE SNOW.

BY SYDNEY YENDYS.

THE COUNT MONTE-LEONE: OR, THE SPY IN SOCIETY.[H]

TRANSLATED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM THE FRENCH OF H. DE ST. GEORGES.

Continued from page 70.

V.—THE ENTERTAINMENT.

VI.—JOURNAL OF A HEART.

VII.—DOCTOR MATHEUS.

FOOTNOTES:

From Fraser's Magazine.

LIFE AT A WATERING PLACE.

THE DOG OF ALCIBIADES.

BY C. ASTOR BRISTED.

From Colburn's New Monthly Magazine

THE TWIN SISTERS.

A TRUE STORY.

BY W. WILKIE COLLINS, AUTHOR OF "ANTONINA."

From Fraser's Magazine.

ALFIERI.

From the Dublin University Magazine

ANECDOTES OF PAGANINI.

BIOGRAPHY OF FRENCH JOURNALISTS.

THE DÉBATS.

THE CONSTITUTIONNEL.

THE NATIONAL.

THE SIÈCLE.

THE PRESSE.

From the Cincinnati Commercial Advertiser.

PROPHECY.